


Paranoid

by Flailingkittylover



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Manga Spoilers, Pre-Trost Arc, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2019-11-03 18:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17882783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flailingkittylover/pseuds/Flailingkittylover
Summary: She’s been told hell lives across the sea, been told how something so simple as the inhabitant’s breathing is a sinful crime. Annie wonders if the island dwellers will soon think the same of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning as this chapter has some disturbing imagery**

The sore ankles of a five-year-old drum a beat against a stool’s wooden legs. Only the small girl’s face can be seen over the countertop, still much too small for her arms to rise and easily eat off her plate as Father does at her side. The sleeves of her jacket slide down her wrists as Annie leans back and sips on her glass of chocolate milk. She’s bored and Father and she don’t talk much unless the knowledge of fighting and enduring broken bones isn’t being communicated. The racket of laughs and chatter rises within the small restaurant and curiosity twists the small girl’s head around.

 

This diner is much like any other diner she has been to, though there are fewer people holding bottles laying on the floor or swaying through the double doors here. Annie has seen Father drink too, but he is more controlled than some of the civilians she has seen passed out in the dirty streets of Liberio.

More people walk into the crowded, shabby diner where everyone converses pleasantly, where smacks on the back are exchanged and guffaws so loud rip through the air that nearby tables scowl in nonverbal reprimand toward the needlessly rowdy noise. There’s a form of cheerfulness around almost every table and Annie sees that unlike everyone else, both she and Father are isolated—they don’t belong in such a warm atmosphere.

 

A pulsing ache similar to the pain her ankles radiates with spreads through Annie’s chest. The dream of being on the receiving end of friendly crowds and smiling faces has always squirmed beneath her skin, but today, the yearning is unbearable. Father and she have exchanged smiles—he even gave a few pats on her head or a treat when she’s done well—but he’s never been so brazen with affection as the parent across the way who smiles at and strokes her happy toddler’s hair.

 

She wonders something.

 

Annie takes a quick sip then coughs a little, pretending to be straining to clear her throat. The front of her body is aimed at the family, leaving a clue for Father to look where she is, to maybe see what other families do and try it on his daughter sometimes; Father is unusually perceptive, but she hopes he won’t see through the guise Annie crafts. The next chest-shaking cough she makes sounds more labored. Another series of ragged coughs allows Annie to hear fabric rustle—the sound of Father's body moving.

 

Suddenly, there's a warm, five-pronged sensation on her middle back. Annie closes her eyes, waits with bated breath toward what would happen. The air in her lungs is coughed out when a stone-firm hand drums between her shoulder blades.

 

“Controlled coughs, Annie.” Father instructs, sounding a bit more annoyed than indifferent. “There, that outta clear that gunk out of your lungs. You get too excited when you drink that filth.”

 

Father returns to eating and their silence is the only one shared within the lively restaurant. Annie’s head hangs, her lowered shoulders hinting toward the misery stabbing her chest. After two long seconds, the girl successfully summons an emotionless glaze over her eyes, blocking away her inner torment once more.

 

A clack of coins rolls around on the counter.  Father stands up and strips the girl hanging her head of her near-empty glass.

 

“Time to go.” Father orders roughly.

 

Annie sees his plate is only half-finished and even a five-year-old conditioned to not refuse a command can’t help but question, “Why?”

 

 _Did I do something wrong?_ She feels her question more so insinuates. Annie’s heart races out of fear she’s in trouble as she stares at her parent.

 

Rather than respond, hardened hands lift Annie up by her underarms and drop her onto the floor. He pulls on his child’s smaller hand, passing through the wooden double doors and walking within the dimly lit city streets.

 

Curfew is nearing and the light from the sidewalk lanterns are not near bright enough to keep the pitch-black streets of the district well lit. The streets are cold, quiet, and a lonely night like this poisons a child’s imagination so easily; Annie’s mind conjures beasts made from shadows tailing her as she walks, stitching themselves to few passerby’s shadows or running along faintly lit walls—they always hunt her from behind. Annie unknowingly clenches Father’s hand a little tighter and relief trickles in when he answers with one reassuring clench.

 

Atop the sound of their shoes clomping along the pavement, Annie hears another noise starting to mix in with their footsteps. Father must hear the new stamping sounds too as his walking speed steadily increases. The sounds soon match their own footfalls pitch, so much so that the small girl can’t keep back a whimper, unable to keep up a speed her Father’s tugging orders her to keep up with.

 

Ice water trickles down Annie’s spine when the pace behind their backs becomes so much quicker, Father quickly picks her up and darts into the closest alleyway. Curses are shouted and Annie would have shouted with them had Father not covered her mouth.

 

Sounds of sprinting feet and clattering garbage cans resonates within the alleyway’s narrow channels. Father’s quick zig-zagging through the alleyway alongside the looming shadows from the ghetto’s tall buildings aid them in slipping out of sight. The breathless man then stops next to a heap of garbage in a dark corner. Annie is set down while the fervent parent makes a hole as quietly as he can. Once the space is complete, a serious face stares into Annie’s.

 

“Just hold your breath.” He commands in his strong, level tone. “And don’t make a sound.”

 

When he picks up his daughter and places her inside, a rancid scent assaults Annie’s sense of smell and the bags surrounding her leak a layer of slime into her clothes.  Pale blue eyes look at Father pleadingly just as her parent shushes her through putting a finger to his lips. Father places more bags oozing putrid odors over her head until she’s hidden completely and with all the effect of a sneaky mouse, quietly slinks into the shadow across the way until he is absorbed by nothing but black.

 

Annie takes in through the hole of her refuge how the muscles within Father’s silhouette are flexing, how torches of focused, blue fire blaze through a layer of night as he lies in wait. An anxious sound attempts to pry free but Annie slaps her palms over her mouth before any sound can escape.

 

After agonizingly long minutes of waiting, yells, cursing, and the clanging of a metallic trash can rolling across the way makes the young girl tremble. The boots who followed them congregate in an intersection of alleyways close by.

 

“Did you find them?” A female voice asks.

 

“No, the slimy bastards got away before we could grab them.” A gruffer voice responds.

 

“ _Fuck ‘em_.” A younger but passionate voice joins in. “We can let the two be for now. It’s not like the termites won’t get theirs one day. Let’s hurry up and re-group with the others so we can finish this.”

 

The collection of strange people complies by sprinting away simultaneously. The iron bands of panic around Annie’s lungs slowly loosens and loosens until the noise from running feet grows from faint to gone.

 

Father walks out from his hiding spot and as moonlight highlights half his body, the white beams expose the flurry of emotions crinkling his tanned face. He scoops up the garbage bags keeping his daughter’s small space of refuge hidden and as he reaches down for her, the sound of glass shattering then a blood-curdling scream permeates the air.

 

The tense man crouches. “Listen.” He directs though Annie notices his level tone has wavered. “I’m going to pick you up and you’re going to close your eyes and ears. You aren’t allowed to listen or see anything until I say so. Understand?”

 

He’s scaring her, the young girl’s trembling and the widening of youthful sockets make the man realize so. A cacophony of glass breaking and guns firing sporadically jolts the father and daughter. The one scream gains the company of many, all reaching a more desperate pitch and there’s a  _smell,_ something which burns Annie’s nostrils so ferociously, her stomach grows queasy.

 

Hands the frightened child isn’t used to being so consoling take hold of her shoulders. “Annie,” He calls for her attention once more. “Did you hear me?”

 

Annie hears the signal then, the coaxing of command through an oddly tamer voice. Her bangs bounce with her ardent nod. The young girl’s body floats up into the air before being tucked into her father’s strong shoulder. She cups her hands over her ears, keeps her small face tucked into Father’s shoulder with his hand holding the back of her head. The toxic poison of terror shakes the inside of Annie’s bones when a blaring siren joins in on the loud hysteria.

 

Right as Father reaches the end of the alleyway, a crowd of police sprints down the sidewalk.  The stampede of bodies bumps into the pair hard enough that Father grunts and Annie winces. Shoulders and bodies collide against the other and through the mayhem and shifting grip of her Father darting out of the group of policemen, an open pocket in his shoulder forms. A light so bright shines behind her eyelids that Annie can’t help but open her eyes.

 

Tongues of orange and yellow lap and swirl in an erratic twister around the diner they had fled from. People donned in black laugh and belch bullets through gun muzzles into the streets, standing in front of a line of bodies hanging before the diner barred entryway. The mass of police running toward them catches the group’s attention and one lays down a suppressive fire toward the officers at the same time Father dives behind a corner, but he still wasn’t in time—he didn’t save her from the rest.

 

Etched into her brain as he runs is the image of bodies with signs painted with black paint hanging from their noosed necks, all forming a sentence:

 

“ _No peace. No home. No justice for Devil Spawn.”_

 

* * *

 

Father decides to keep away from the city after that day. He doesn’t allow Annie off of their premises either, not that he did so initially.

 

Father makes a deal with a vendor with whom they have known for some time, offering the baffled man who often traffics food along their home’s path money; Annie isn’t sure how Father has found so many of the gold pieces he shows the merchant so quickly. A couple of days later, Annie overhears the two men speaking about a newspaper the vendor had filched for her Father, but the young girl has trouble understanding.

 

Words like “lynching” and “gang-related “and “posing as Eldians” escape the five-year-old though she understands when the man reads the headline of “The Worst Liberio Internment Camp Has Seen”.

 

Annie hears a phlegmy inhale than the hacking of spit before the vendor snarls. “If they got past the guards at the gates with  _weapons_  of all things, I bet they were in on this whole plan.  Bastards, I tell you. The whole lot of them. Those little shits plotted this attack and I’ll be damned if they get away with it. By any means necessary, we’ll get back at them. Right?”

 

Father never responds. His stoic nature guides him in only greeting and thanking the merchant for his goods. He sees the man off once his twin horses and wagon finally clinks and clatters away on the bumpy dirt road winding through the forest.

 

Stuck in a fetal position in her spot under the windowsill, the storm of trauma within Annie’s unsupervised mind worsens.

 

Father has never worn a face so hardened or as frightened as he did in the alley. Worse so, no matter how many times Annie blinks fiercely in the day or the night, the image of blackened, dangling feet swaying left to right and faces glazed in death before pillars of fire burns vividly. Her chin tucks into her chest, curling into herself tighter, fighting against flashes and whimpers which desperately want to spill out of her.

 

“Annie. “The booming voice of Father jars Annie from her thoughts and lifts her chin up.

 

He stares down at her from the windowsill, his stern face blank and unreadable. “Training yard. Fifteen seconds.”

 

Discipline springs up her small body from the floor and sets Annie off into a sprint. Her bare feet soon stand in the dirt, ankles slammed close together and body kept straight as an arrow.

 

“Training will amp up considerably after today.” Father informs her as he walks in front of her. “The next wave of Warriors will be chosen within the next few years. We must make sure you are prepared.”

 

A question separates Annie’s lips but the deepening frown and crinkling of the space between Father’s brows drives her mouth to close.

 

“Frailty and a small stature are not desired characteristics in soldiers or warriors, Annie.” He remarks emotionlessly. “And you are weak and defenseless, so easy to have been plucked away should that group have found us.” The girl’s shoulders slump dispiritedly from her parent’s words before his thunderous voice rises again. “But you won’t be such things forever. Not after I teach you everything. Then this world will have every reason to fear you. Now _focus._ I will not tolerate it if you hesitate even for a second.”

 

Strong forearms pull up and his knee bends as his right leg pulls forward. “Show me your stance.”

 

Annie acts as her father’s reflection, stamping the ball of her foot on the ground in front of her and zipping her forearms up to match his own.

 

Her heart races oddly when a smirk barely raises the corner of his lips. “ _Excellent.”_

* * *

 

 

Yellow strands of hair sway with the wind as the boat steers the group away. The others with families more exuberant than her own wave goodbye and blow kisses to her comrades. Devout followers take off their caps and cheer while Father remains the odd man out, only keeping the hand not gripping his cane up high.

 

The older girl remembers the dullness of his eyes, the borders being so red and puffy as he sobbed his regrets, squeezing her so tightly that her shoulders ached. Annie wonders if he maintains an impassive mask to her because of how vulnerable he made himself, how he may be at risk of doing so again in public or if the fear of their near-lynching grips his attention toward his surroundings still.

 

A shiver runs through her. Annie looks away from the crowd, now focusing on the slice of land across their channel where their mission resides.

 

For decades propaganda and Marleyian insults have made her people believe in the fairytales concocted by a government whose no different than the Eldian empire they vilify. Annie ponders if unlike them, the island dwellers are living peacefully within a self-enclosed fish bowl or if they are as barbaric as everyone else.

 

She wouldn’t be surprised if so. People always end up being the same and if the Paradisians genetic makeup is truly constructed of the same blood and bones, Annie expects to find creatures who are as cowardly and spineless as she and so many others here.

 

At the same time Annie’s mind wanders, a young boy holds a beloved book close to his chest. He eagerly calls out to his bored friend who sits beside a crystalline river.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The sky is blue and weather is warm but the young boy trembling behind his grandfather doesn’t notice. The impact of the previous day weighs heavily on his mind: how Eren said his mother’s body hung down a Titan’s blood-soaked chin, how the ragged screams of those who were left behind as their boat sailed away chilled his blood. An anxiety which corrodes the nerves and festers in one’s gut wreaks havoc within the young boy. The blonde’s acute focus soon shows him the erosion of hope and growth of fear is shared by everyone else around him.

 

Locals of the town impose an otherness on the crowd of refugees and crying children while panic and disorientation winds up the surviving populace of Shingansina.

 

The already fragile social fabric looks to be ripping apart by the seams already.

 

“I heard there wasn’t just one but _two_ of those things.” The young boy’s hearing picks up from behind him.

 

“It’s true!” A man whose voice teeters on turning frantic backs up. “I saw it! The red one destroyed the first, then a Titan that looked like it had plated armor broke the next!”

 

“They were there, then they were gone in an instant!” A booming voice adds in. “It’s God’s judgement, I’m telling you!”

 

“Calm yourself before you jump on the cult wagon.” A more level voice counters. “These must have been a new breed of Aberrants.”

 

“Aberrants which can come up out of _nowhere_?” A female rebukes. “You’re mad!”

 

“And if they _are_ a new breed, who's to say there are not more of them?!”

 

“This is...this is truly the apocalypse.” A shaking voice stammers through chattering teeth. “If such creatures exist, they can kill us at any time.”

 

“Why are we just standing around here then?!” A young man shouts.

 

“ _Hey_!!” A soldier at the front barks. “Pipe down over there! Or else we’ll put you to the back of the breadline! You want that?!”

 

The clamor dies then, but only a little. The gossip of conspiracy, impending mayhem, and God’s justice spreads through hushed whispers amongst the crowd and families tucked away in the corners of the city square. The young boy’s trembling never stops. A small group of children much like his own friends take food and he keeps his blue eyes down. They look to be alone with no one but each other to look out for and the considerate boy’s throat and face burns from the thought.

 

Families are broken here, reduced to scrounging for food like rats battling for a morsel. He’s lived his life feeling like such creatures, of being a mooch and a weakling devoid of any capability to defend himself; to be so easily discarded and forgotten if he had died like so many others yesterday. Was this whole thing some cruel joke life had against him? Was losing mother, father, and the remaining innocence of his friends not enough to prove he was worthless?  

 

“And as quick as the Titans had come, so had they left.” The boy hears his grandfather murmur under his breath. He looks up, catching his relative’s pensive scratching into his beard. “Such behavior is unlike any Titan I’ve ever heard of.”

 

The blond child looks up at his grandfather, puzzled and wondering what else his equally curious elder thinks. The grizzled man spots his grandchild’s stare in the corner of his hazel eye. The wrinkles around his tanned face grow more pronounced with his rising smile.

 

A hand calloused by a sturdy hoe and pitchfork pat the boy’s head. “Don’t fret too much over the unknown, Armin. You’ll be fine. I see that much and more in you.” Before he knew it, three loaves of bread make it into the young boy’s arms. “Take these and go feed your friends. All we need to concern ourselves with is that we’re safe now.”

 

Uncertainty bites at the back of Armin’s head, but the faith in grandfather’s words paired with a warm smile allows the anxiety to finally unwind. Grandfather’s presence has always been warm and consoling—so much like how mother and father were— and the young boy is relieved he’s kept one torch of light in a new bleak, shadowy path.

 

Armin runs along, trying to blink away old tears of frustration. Grandfather is his bedrock and now, it’s his turn to be a support for his friends who stand dejected and confused nearby.

 

* * *

 

Time flies by as fast as this tragedy, and once more, it snuffs out one more light from Armin’s life.

 

A worn straw-hat is all the remaining Arlert has to remember grandfather by alongside memories he fears will fade over time... _if_ he ever makes it to such an age.

 

With a determined fire which sharpens the voice, Eren expresses his disdain for this cruelty life has thrust upon them and announces his plans to join the military. Armin has to say his oath again when Eren’s confused gaze darts to his friend.

“Me too!” Armin repeats himself.

 

His hands clutch the frayed rims of grandfather’s hat as Mikasa follows after Armin with, “I’ll join too.”

 

It always takes a minute for Eren to accept his friend’s new plans to replace his bad, original idea, but the surprised brunette eventually relents. They’ve spent two years wandering like vermin through the streets, wondering when their next meal will be, where they will sleep next. They’re all tired, Armin has sensed their fatigue since the very beginning and following them down this perilous path could be the only way he can ever find a way to repay both his friends and honor grandfather for saving him from himself.

 

Their losses have bubbled up the determination of following through on enlisting tomorrow morning, just like a similar trio who uproots tree stumps in the fields beyond their city.

 

* * *

 

The mass of adolescents standing with feet shoulder-width apart is filled with a strange bunch.

 

An imbecile with a shaved head has his eyes pulled up by Shadis. Another blond girl somehow shorter than her and barren of Annie’s combat expertise has the audacity to think she will survive basic training; the same could be said for the boy with a blond mop who Annie is sure she could snap in two. There’s even a freckled boy who devotes himself to a monarch who would throw him away like the shit below his royal boot. These cadets are soft children who are unexposed to life’s cruelties. They hold no power like Marley and the world proclaims; all Annie sees are frightened, selfish creatures trapped in an obsolete time and stand ripe for the world’s picking.

 

Annie eventually notices another breed hiding amongst the crowd of cadets.

 

A fierce brunette stands with his feet planted strongly, his green leaf eyes unforgiving. A dominant scent reeks of the impassive half-Asian across her way and a ponytailed girl’s stoic expression could rival Annie’s own. To her surprise, there is a handful of faces of stone and blazing fire, but they are rare gems amongst a crowd of green—and mostly stupid—youths.

 

When the crowd splits apart and the female brunette who Shadis hisses is insolent keeps running, Annie turns the back of her leather jacket to this world.

 

There is no point in connecting with the tenants within the walls. Their race was sentenced to death and either Titans or her own people would carry out the deed. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The boy who announced himself as Arlert is hopelessly uncoordinated. It’s amazing to Annie just how easy it is to kick his fragile ankle, to grab and throw him like a lifeless sack of flour over her shoulder. The boy who could be confused with a walking stick groans, entangled in his own limbs on the dusty floor, but perhaps it is because Annie has rendered many like this that such a humiliating spectacle doesn’t stop him from raising a few eyebrows.

 

Two days later, the focused boy joins Annie in being the first few who have mastered balancing in the maneuver gear. His oddly light body rises and soon after, he hovers and stays over the ground with a hummingbird’s grace. His focused face fights through the dripping sweat until a smile slowly appears in time with the oohs and aahs of the crowd.

 

River-blue eyes gleam with pride but to Annie, mastering the oddest contraption she has ever seen won’t make Arlert’s odds of living all the more possible. He’s only learned how to run away from danger just like she suspects the shaved-side headed moron who boasts to his two karate-master-impersonating friends will.

 

Still, the crowd cheers and asks for the stunned blond and his friend’s secret to success as they unbuckle themselves from their gear. He’s meek and feeble—Annie judges— a stunted tree caught in the larger tree shadow his female counterpart casts.

 

She doesn’t understand why people are impressed but supposes even the runts eventually have their time in the spotlight.

 

Contrary to his friends, the loud brunette hungry for validation cries out in frustration. His attempt at mastering the gear is as hopeless as his baby-faced friend’s fighting. The fiery brunette hangs motionless, eyes wide with horror and embarrassment from all the faces watching and laughing.

 

A sneer threatens to crack her blank face. The tanned-skin boy’s ferocity in voicing his dreams caught her attention—how could it not? — though Annie doubts such unrealistic goals are attainable. Titans are the least of all these island dweller’s worries and he is the loudest but smallest ant in this isolated ant farm; Annie finds no fault in this crowd laughing at him.

 

The two friends who follow the driven boy’s every step run to his side. The young blond smiles encouragingly at his troubled friend, guides him in what areas he needs to focus on: how balance stems from the core and position of the hips. Such well-meaning intent didn’t deserve the uncouth dismissal of his help from his friend, yelling with a fervent wave of his hand that he’ll figure out balancing in the gear on his own. And still, the smallest of the group smiles warmly at the brunette, nodding reluctantly but abiding by his wish in stepping to the side.

 

The sight sparks alive the fiery burn of anger in Annie’s chest.

 

These people have the audacity to _smile_ toward this charade of playing soldier and useless training. What’s more upsetting is the group’s runt bows his head and submits to command too easily, a clear sign he’s either another useless drone to the military or a spineless cadet. She hardly kept her mouth shut around Reiner; to be surrounded by loyal empty-heads comparable to him may truly corrupt her remaining sanity.

 

The girl favoring solitude walks away.

 

Arlert should savor that smile; Annie knows he will not be able to wear it often soon enough.

 

* * *

 

The clink of gun frames being put together envelops the classroom. The focused group sits shoulder to shoulder, shining muzzles and cleaning the inner workings of rifles which Annie wonders might be held against her and her comrades one day.  Reiner and Bertolt join Annie in being ahead of the others alongside the ever-mysterious Asian sitting behind her.  

 

The girl’s ambitious and loud friend tries to be quick like her but something is clearly awry as the trigger refuses to be pulled back. Hands which Annie notices Jean and a few other boys pay too much attention to try to help her friend who grouses curses, but like the blond close by, he shoves her away.

 

Annie does somewhat of the same to Reiner and Bertolt, though she is far less brazen about it. But unlike them, she accepts her lone wolf brand and doesn’t find them to be close friends. They are people she is forced to deal with for a common goal and actively omits herself from an extension of their friendship.

 

All the more reason why Annie doesn’t understand how those three maintain such a peculiarly close relationship.

 

Is there an obligation between the three? Does the tallest of the group do all she does out of motherly instinct? Or is there something romantic? Annie can’t quite tell; she’s never been good of spotting romantic hints. All Annie knows is the girl labeled an “exotic beauty” sticks primarily to the green-eyed dope and is never without her scarf, even on hotter days.  

 

Their smaller friend looks either content at being a third wheel or used to it as he simply resumes in building his rifle with his freckled friend. They enjoy talking to each other while Eren grumbles in frustration. The mysterious Asian carries on and finishes her rifle’s construction in record time—of course—though Annie spots how she was only.5 seconds ahead of her.

 

Again, Annie isn’t sure for a second time, especially of why her being ahead by so little upsets her so much.

 

* * *

 

Running boots sink and rise out of thick, slippery mud. Rain hailing from a smoke-grey sky pours over the cadets and high trees trap them from all sides. Nearly everyone wheezes and strains to run as a backpack filled with brick weighs on their backs and tired calves.

 

Annie peers back behind her, witnessing the shared struggle and scoffs. These people have the luxury of wearing rain gear— an offer Magath and his countrymen dismissed with either a laugh or threatening snarl; these people don’t have it as bad as they think. Her inquisitive gaze peers over her shoulder again, spotting how the slender weakest link stumbles behind everyone else.

 

Reiner somehow fell back enough to run at his side. Annie blinks in what was at first confusion when he strips the boy’s gear, hissing at him something she can’t hear but isn’t stupid enough that she can’t assume. Reiner is a devoted fool, but she grants that he is at his best somewhat sympathetic. He stumbled behind herself and everyone else in Liberio’s training grounds, never succeeded at much of anything like the boy he runs next to; Annie wonders if this is Reiner’s way of helping those who were just like him.

 

“Hurry up!” Shadis orders from his trotting horse. “If you make me late for dinner, you can expect 10 extra laps for dessert!”

 

Annie picks up the pace with ease, the years of rigid conditioning steering her and Bertolt to the front of the pack. The brunette fool jealous of his female friend holding first place works strenuously to hold fourth behind Annie and Bertolt. Right when the short girl looks back to find the weaker blond, Reiner sprints up next to her.

 

The bulky teenager smiles down at her though Annie responds with the bridge of her nose pinching for a brief second. Frozen blue eyes then notice the extra pack slung over his shoulder is gone.

 

When her green-hooded head swivels around, the one holding last place runs alone again. Fighting against burning muscles and labored breathing, Annie sees the weak embers in his tired eyes begin to burn into a fire.

 

Annie squints her eyes in suspicious curiosity before returning her face forward.

 

Arlert is pitifully weak and timid, but at least he’s persistent.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Annie has never felt so free while up so high. All the time she spent hovering above the ground was within a web of smooth muscle and tendons, trapping her in a living mechanism whose sole focus was to crush and stomp. 

 

Here Annie could drift from branch to branch, twirl and slice the cushy-neck of Titan dummies like it’s some macabre dance choreography. Sunshine hair strands whip alongside her pale face as the shortest of the pack glides higher above squad mates who cautiously swing below. A rope retraction and leaning her body back angles Annie’s hips higher until shiny anchors shoot up and latch on the farthest branch the gear can reach. A gust of steam blasts out behind her and Annie rushes up so fast, she barely registers crossing her arms when breaching the forest’s thick-leaved awning.

 

Pinkish-purple clouds and the orange setting sun rests above the canopy of trees. Her body hovers in freefall for two of the longest seconds time provides her and slowly, she closes her eyes. Annie soaks in this split second when everything is calm and soothing around her, when nothing but the sun’s dull heat beating against her skin is all she feels.

 

The clench and upturn of her gut from her gradual descent shoots Annie’s eyelids open. She’s reluctant to let go and leave so soon, but instinct guides her body toward the large crevice splitting the tree’s green canopy. Metal anchors launch forward, making landfall on a branch just as she starts swinging back into the tree maze they practice in.

 

When she returns, the boy Annie sees as he-who-can-never-not-be-last-place is twenty feet from her. 

 

Annie sees his muscles tighten through his sleeves, and still, his blades only manage to slice through one foot of the Wood-Titans neck targets. Arlert doesn’t seem to care though. He drifts and falls in the air much too long for comfort and a sense of danger born from war exposure prickles at the back of Annie’s neck. When his face exposes itself from his long hair, he sports the most disgustingly kiddish grin she’s ever seen.

 

He’s having _fun_ and a ferocious burn festers in Annie’s gut. As if sensing her ire, the boy’s head turns, exchanging a confused look to her focused one.

 

“You daydream too much.” Annie scolds in a monotonous voice. 

 

His smile becomes wobbly. “Sorry. We’ve been working so hard lately, I can’t help but try to find a break. We need it sometimes.” His vision travels around the lush expanse of the forest. “It feels so freeing here.”

 

 _Break,_ Annie mentally scoffs. The oblivious-to-the-world boy appears to distress when Annie’s look regards him sourly. She zooms forward without a word to lose herself in the trees. 

 

There were no breaks in life—Father taught her that.

 

Arlert and the others would be wise to learn that now.

 

* * *

 

“I said to take the _left!”_ Connie orders loudly. “No! _No!_ _Your_ left!”

 

 _“_ I called the right though!” Sasha fights back with fiery eyes. “It’s the better angle!”

 

“I told you _I’m_ faster so _I’ll_ do it!”

 

“No! You’re doing it all wrong!”

 

“Oh, for the love of—will you both just shut up and _grab it?!”_ Jean barks.

 

Annie tends to her horse as Connie dives after a gobbling turkey. Dust clouds rise as he misses and skids along the dirt while his large, feathered meal speeds away with Sasha hot on its orange heels. 

 

Life must be so simple when one is simple-minded and devoid of any thought, Annie figures as she watches the trio panic and strain to capture a panicked bird. Their stomach so much as rumbles unpleasantly and the whole scouting party needs to be put to a halt. The only ones who don’t join them is the rest of their group, the two boys who stare over the edge of a nearby cliff. The unbreakable pair have been loitering there for some time and with her horse peacefully drinking from a nearby river, Annie walks over to find out what they are seeing.

 

Nature’s cool sighs blow so pleasantly on Annie’s face, the heat is easily countered. The weather only compliments a cloudless sky even more when Annie reaches the cliff’s edge. 

 

Beyond their resting place is a grassy vastness completely void of mankind’s presence. Annie knows only small, calm rivers and cramped forests, not cliffsides weeping crystal waterfalls or pine-cone shaped trees stringing like a line of dominoes throughout the valley. Twin sets of snow-tipped mountains wind halfway through the lush valley until they end and Paradis’s wall seen far on the horizon fills the gap between the two divides. Everything is nature in its simplest form and Annie can’t tear her sight away.

 

“It’s beautiful.” A voice breathes in awe. Annie’s eyes snap over to the blond boy keeping his back to her. “And to think this is only just where we live...there’s _more_ out there, a world with miles and miles of this kind of sight with no walls to get in your way. It could even have mountains so high they reached the clouds. Oh! And the sand hills too! I wonder if it’s just like the dirt we have here. I can’t _wait_ to find out!”

 

Annie frowns inwardly. Even if the aspiring explorer survived this hellish fishbowl, he will never reach the spaces beyond the sea. A military life gave her only glimpses of the outside world, but the internment zones kept their kind secluded from everything else. Why should fate react differently for him?

 

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Arlert directs his face to Annie then to his brown-haired companion.

 

His stubborn friend harrumphs. “Of course it’s exciting. Now just think of how much _more_ exciting traveling will be once we can focus on getting back the land we lost.” A bloodthirsty sneer cracks his bronze face. “And that won’t happen until we get rid of the Titans. Those damn things are what's keeping us caged here. Remember to keep your head in the game, Armin. We can’t explore anything until every last one of them is purged.”

 

Hesitation wrinkles the forehead of the young cadet’s friend, though his golden fringes bob from his understanding nod. The pair looks back over the land gushing with life below. 

 

Throughout all the deaths and failures in advancing Titan understanding, hope somehow survives in searching blue and smoldering green. Irritation binds tightly in Annie’s chest, constricting tight enough that she can no longer stay and quickly twists around. She doesn’t acknowledge the call of her name from the pair behind her.

 

“I caught it!” Annie hears the female simpleton cheer in the distance. The huntress brings up the legs of the turkey tight in her grip right as a dastardly look eclipses over her eyes. “No amount of gobbling will save you now.” She threatens darkly.

 

The huntress mumbles and counts on her available fingers all the alternative ways to cook the turkey as her shorter friend dusts off his uniform.

 

“I tired him out for you.” He huffs tiredly with crossed arms. “So, save me a big piece!”

 

“We’ll all share!” The brunette twists her head around to look to Annie. “Annie! What’s your favorite piece? Better claim now before all the good parts are gone!”

 

Annie keeps her silence and grabs the empty sack hanging from the horse’s saddle. “Give me whichever.” She responds blankly. “I’ll see what else I can scavenge in the forest.” 

 

She keeps walking through the bushes until she can’t hear her comrades loud offers to help her anymore. This new setting when she is alone and searching is at least familiar, to be dipping between thick brushes and a maze of trees in a hunt for food. For a split second, it reminds her pleasantly of Father, in a time where she is young and his motivating smile was more common than once in a blue moon.

 

But the two boys voicing their dreams have made too much of a toxic imprint on her. The fury burns through the memory of Father’s smile and the tightness in Annie’s chest returns.

 

The daydreamers of the group have the blissful ignorance to believe they are free, can venture outside Paradis’s and the internment zone’s walls without so much as a foul face staring down at them. The well-read friend thinks he can go even _further_ beyond that, explore the oddities he’s read about without a brand highlighting what he is. How can they even _think_ of such things?

 

Internal flames fume so fiercely, Annie’s grip on her rifle becomes tight enough for the wood to groan. 

 

The blaze of anger twisting inside her isn’t out of annoyance, Annie then realizes. 

 

She’s _jealous_ of them.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey...it’s been awhile since we’ve seen Annie.” Armin addresses with concern. He looks into the shadowy tunnels of the trees surrounding them as he stands up from his spot in the dirt. “Did she say when she would be back?”

 

“She’s fine.” Eren quickly answers. He lounges against a tree with flaky bark as he stares into the sunset sky. “She’ll come around when she wants to.”

 

“Even so, it’s getting dark. “Armin continues. “We shouldn’t just sit here and wait.”

 

“Her kicks will probably break the neck of anything that comes at her.” Connie responds with a shudder. “She’ll be fine.”

 

Armin’s glance toward Connie understands his point but remains dissatisfied. “I’ll wait five more minutes. If she’s not back by then, I’m going out to look for her. One of us should have gone with her to begin with.”

 

“Yeah, because she makes such _great_ company.” Jean sarcastically adds. “I’d rather talk to a tree stump than be stuck scavenging with her again. Just leave her be like she wants to be. She never strays on her own for too long.”

 

Resolute ocean eyes flinch. He isn’t a fan of how open the disdain is for Annie’s self-isolating nature—then again, he isn’t a fan of how Jean antagonizes Eren and how his friend returns the favor either. A group this size with such a different dynamic than what he grew up with is something he is still getting used to.

 

From afar, Eren sees how deep the roots of determination go in his friend. “Fine.” Eren says through a long sigh. “We’ll give her five more minutes then I’ll join you in looking for her. Happy?”

 

“While we all wait then…” Connie begins before Armin can answer. He slaps his hands together and quickly rubs his palms like he’s starting a fire. “Who’s hungry? Chef Connie is on it!”

 

 “ _No_ ,” Jean sternly denies from his wooden seat. “You are _not_ cooking again.”

 

“Come on!” Connie argues. “My mom showed me this really good stuffed turkey recipe! I know you’ll like it!”  
  
“ _No_! I’ve hardly recovered from the last time you cooked and I’m pretty sure I _still_ have dysentery. Let Sasha handle it.”

 

A sound between a grumble and a growl leaves Connie. Armin’s mouth jerks when Connie’s excited eyes meet his. “Armin! You want to try it out, right? I promise, it will be the best turkey you’ve ever tried!”

 

A strong gurgle rumbles Armin’s stomach—he isn’t sure if it’s a desperate plea to not go through the trauma of eating Connie’s food again or from standard hunger pangs.

 

“No thanks.” Armin politely refuses. “I think Sasha has us covered.”

 

“But she doesn’t know about my sauce! I’m telling you, it’s the missing ingredient this turkey needs!” 

 

“That sounds _disgusting_.” Jean criticizes with the right side of his face crinkling in disgust.

 

“That’s because you’re a perverted shit-head whose head is always in the gutter.” Eren chimes in with a malicious sneer.

 

“Who asked you, dickless-wonder?”

 

“I’ll speak whenever I want to you lazy wanna-be!”

 

Sasha and Armin are the only ones who don’t add in to Connie’s laughs or Eren and Jean’s barrage of insults. Armin sighs while Sasha’s gold eyes become alight with proud achievement. “Done!” She backs up from the wooden spit she crafted and quickly starts a roaring fire beneath it. As she slides the turkey through a shaved-down branch she hopes to twist over the fire, a crunch nearby Armin jolts him up from his slouch.

 

A bag plops onto the ground next to Armin with oyster mushrooms toppling out from the bursting crease. When Armin looks up, Annie bends down to pick up the mushrooms and he spots two rabbits hanging from ropes on each hip. 

 

“Found a few things in the forest to make a stew.” Annie summarizes boredly. She crouches down and begins to unpack the rest of her findings. “All of this should help us recoup after the long ride.”

 

Sasha squeals loudly with glee. “Annie, you did a _great job_! Just look at all this! And those _herbs_.” The huntress’s hand darts over only for it to stop once Annie’s deadpan stare shifts to Sasha.

 

“Uh...could you share some of those herbs?” Sasha smiles awkwardly at her silent teammate. “It would go great with the turkey!” Annie keeps up her empty stare and Sasha trembles like a rabbit caught in a hawk’s gaze. “Uh...um…pretty please can you give me some herbs?”

 

Annie maintains her stare. She then collects a large handful of green herbs and peppers stuffed deep in her bag and hands them to the waiting cook. Armin didn’t think humans can squeal as loud as Sasha did just now and for a brief second, Armin sees Annie flinch when Sasha hugs her. The hunter speeds back to her makeshift rotisserie while Annie takes out a knife to skin the rabbits. 

 

The aromas of mushrooms and rabbit boiling in a stew and turkey roasting is enough for Armin’s stomach to growl angrily with his friend’s joining in on the chorus. Once the turkey is ready and crisp on the spit, immediate tension builds as drool drips from the side of Sasha’s mouth. 

 

“Connie, are you prepared?” Armin hears Jean whisper.

 

“You know it.” Connie responds with rope being tied over his palms. “You aim for her legs and I’ll put this between her teeth.”

 

What Armin calls “the dust cloud of mayhem” edges on breaking loose as Sasha enters into a primitive state. Eren’s eye twitches in annoyance and rising hunger while Armin readies himself to weasel whatever food isn’t being bitten or pulled upon.

 

As Sasha reaches for the carving knife, Annie snatches it before anyone can make their move.

 

“Hold out your bowls.” Annie instructs with a stern, level tone. “You’ll get no more than I give you.”

 

“Chef’s privilege!” Sasha declares with carnivorous eyes. “I should get the biggest piece! And I should be _first_!”

 

Annie pauses. She slowly directs the pointed end of the knife in a way which could be either threatening or simply pointing to Sasha. “I won’t repeat what I said.”

 

Sasha’s cheeks puff up and blaze red in cartoonish anger and she holds it in for _so long_ , Armin fears she’ll start turning purple. Armin believes Annie has the threatening presence of Shadis—or dare he say, Mikasa herself—and it’s the one force keeping the turkey from not being covered in a layer of Sasha’s saliva.

 

 Sasha finally exhales in both a desperate grab for air and frustration. “Bah! Fineeeee!” She exclaims. “Just serve me first then!”

 

Annie shrugs and to the group’s surprise, a large slab of turkey and two ladles full of mushroom-rabbit stew fills Sasha’s bowl first. The soup bowl is warm in Armin’s grip and as he brings the edge up to his lips, a broth both warm and finely laced with spice slips down his throat. He drinks and eats so quickly that for the first time in forever, his stomach begins to feel satisfyingly filled. 

 

“All of this is _delicious!”_ Connie appraises with a hearty sigh. He licks his bowl clean after his fingers are purged of turkey flavor. “Finally, I’m actually _full_.” 

 

“Who knew you could do something other than scowl and fight Leonhardt.” Jean smirks at the quiet girl. “It wasn’t the best but it also wasn’t bad.”

 

“S’ok.” Eren says through the munching on the last of his food. “But then again, you have stingy taste buds because your mom makes such _good_ food. Nothing beats momma’s home-cooking, right Jean-boy?”

 

“ _You shut your damn mouth!”_ Jean yells too loudly for comfort.

 

A sneer anxious for battle splits Eren’s face and Armin runs his hands over his tired face as the insult battle starts up again. He strains to ignore the ear-drum splitting shouts between the two and diverts his attention to Annie. 

 

“Did you live near a forest when you were younger?” He asks. “You were gone for a while but came back with so much.”

 

“I spent a lot of time in one.” Annie partially answers.

 

“And you used to hunt in it?”

 

“Somewhat.”

 

Armin smiles, knowing she’s actively avoiding in saying more. “Well, everything was delicious.” He says with a praising tone. “Thank you. I can honestly say this is the first time in a long time where I’ve had something so good!”

 

Enigmatic blue stare at Armin. The teenage girl blinks slowly at him and for a few moments, Armin’s heart knocks against his ribs, wondering if he’s said something wrong. Annie then stands up from her moss-covered log seat.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Someone needs to keep watch.” She answers. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a pack of wolves make their way to us because of how loud those idiots are being. I’ll take the first watch while you all clean up.”

 

The back of her head then faces Armin as she isolates herself again. He watches as she approaches a tree and hops upward off the trunk to dangle from a branch, then pulls herself up in a fluid motion, as if lifting her own body with only her arms was no troublesome feat at all—and Armin would _definitely_ disagree. Darkness covers her face and upper torso as she looks on into the depths of the forest and Armin turns his sudden train of thought toward the blazing fire.

 

He thinks back to Annie and the cool blue hue of her eyes. He doesn’t understand why a slightly clammy feeling comes over his palms while so.

 


	5. Chapter 5

She’d much prefer to get out of this ungodly heat rather than be standing here on the training grounds. The bronze teenager furious with the world has his hands on his knees, panting in front of Annie. He gasps in hope it will revitalize him, but he gulps and coughs before desperately sucking in more air. 

The corners of Annie’s mouth shift smugly. “You’re useless if you can’t gather your breath.” Annie rubs in his failure. “Quit while you’re ahead and go get rest.”

A sound in-between a refusing grunt and sharp exhale leaves Yeager as Annie scoots hair behind her ear. Her eyes are zeroed in on the determined teenager, waiting—always waiting. 

Blazing green rising up to her is Annie’s que. Yeager lunges and shoves the wooden knife forward so quickly, all Annie sees is a creeping blur closing in on her stomach. But Annie dodges to the side with ease, zips forward on the balls of her feet and slams her hands on his ears. A scream which tears at the throat rings out so loudly from Yeager, cadets twist their heads around in horror. His howling is replaced by an _oof_ when Annie’s sinks her foot into his stomach and knocks him several feet back. Yeager rolls twice until he stops, all the while holding his head—no doubt his brain must feel like it’s been clanged hard between hand cymbals. 

“You’re too much of a hammer.” Annie criticizes in a bored tone. She walks over to hover him and rests a hand on her hip, as if to display how terribly disappointed she is.  “If you hope to get an edge on someone, you need to be more surgical.”

“Whatever the _fuck_ that means!” The agonized brunette yells. He groans pitifully and rolls onto his back with his palms firm over his ears. “Shit, shit, _shit!_ What did you do to me?!”

She pokes Eren’s head with the tip of her boot in reprimand. “Stop being a baby. I didn’t hit you hard enough for your ear-drums to rupture. At worst, you’ll be disoriented for a couple of days.” Annie cups her hands in display to Yeager when angered leaf-green roll to her. “You form your hand this way if you hope to do any damage then hit the middle of your palm directly over their ear. This will stun the other person and leave them open to another attack.” Annie watches Yeager in his pain below and exhales sharply. “But that’s _after_ you’re able to get close enough to them, which you are nowhere near yet.”

The disgruntled boy growls with his roll over and plants his forehead into the dirt, as if hoping this new position and his hands massaging the sides of his head will help the pain. He trembles in his spot on the gravel-riddled dirt and strains to get up before he tumbles back down. 

“Here,” A familiar voice says. Eyes under half-curtained lids land on him immediately—the blond who often watches on the sidelines rather than participate. “Take my hand, Eren.”

Yeager grumbles into the ground. He bats away Arlert’s hand at first but once he rises from shaking arms and trips over his feet, Arlert grabs his friend right as he reaches out for balance. Annie hears weak grousing beneath irate breathing and Arlert shushes Yeager— “She’s _right there_!”, she hears the boy say— but Annie walks away, unphased by the boy who is upset with her and the others who stare and divert from her path like she’s some ominous tidal wave. 

It’s later in the evening when she sees all of them again. The chatter is loud and lively as it usually is and the pair’s Asian friend drills the devil’s glare into her the entire time Annie eats. The whole charade of the Ackerman bending forks in threat and her “family” friend yelling at the cocky Kirstein gets boring after a while and as Annie shifts on the bench to leave, the scrawny friend from Yeager’s group comes up to her. She’s so surprised by his question, Annie blinks a couple times.

“What did you say?” Annie asks. Her smooth tone is almost penetrated by her surprise.

Arlert clears his throat nervously. “Will um...will you train me too? 

Annie’s walled-off nature almost steers her in looking at the boy oddly before walking away but she narrows her eyes instead. “You’re barely a beginner. Now all of a sudden you think you can jump up to advanced?”

“N-Not at all!  I just feel like you have a lot of good pointers, even for beginners— _especially_ for beginners.” A smile—one which is nervous but genuine— hikes up his lips. “I’d like to listen and join in, i-if it’s not too much trouble, of course.”

Annie blinks long and slow, digesting all he’s said. Time is manageable when she gives careful guidance to one doofus; now, she has this deprived kid’s attention and routine and maintenance of an image already pries too much of her attention from her main focus. If Reiner and Bertolt weren’t too engrossed in the falsehoods they play—would actually _help_ her seek out information—, _she_ wouldn’t have to pick up their slack. 

“I have one weakling to train already.” She answers dryly. “Why would I take on someone who's even weaker than him?”

“Because I need to know some kind of basic combat. ”Arlert reasons calmly. His face is determined though his face looks sweatier than she remembers it being. “I’m not strong enough to take most people down...but maybe I can buy myself enough time to run away. That move you used on Eren earlier showed me that.”

“The answer is no.”

“Please, Annie! I promise, I won’t get in the way or anything. I’ll be quiet and just sit on the sidelines. I can even be your warm-up before Eren!”

“Your friend asks basic questions which are easy to answer. I don’t have time to answer your exceedingly long and complicated ones like I _know_ you’re going to ask me.” Annie sits up from her spot on the bench. “My answer is no.”

Arlert is anything if not persistent and his deepening frown displays so. “I understand, Annie. But just to let you know, I won’t stop asking you. This is important to me.”

Annie arches a challenging brow. “Then expect that each time you do ask me, I’ll bend and tie you into a wagon wheel and roll you away.”

“And each time you do that, I’ll untangle myself and come back to ask you again.” He declares resolutely. 

“Stop wasting my time.” Annie replies tartly.

Showing Arlert the hood hanging on her jacketed back ends the conversation and like Annie expected, Arlert follows through on his word. 

He asks her to train him again the next day.

She ignores him.

He asks her again during lunch the following day.

He has to nervously babble an explanation to Shadis why there is water spilt around his groin during a surprise roll call. 

He asks her again during one of Yeager’s lessons.

Annie tactfully shoves her foot into his friend’s stomach so hard, he staggers back and topples into his smaller friend before both tumble down to the ground.

And Arlert asks again the next day.

And the next day.

_And the next day._

Through legs being swept from under him, being shoulder tossed away, and being consistently ignored, Arlert comes back each time. Annie’s poker face struggles to mask the frustration underneath when she spots a familiar mop of flaxen blond walk toward her again. 

Her knuckles crack from her fist clench.

He’s _too_ persistent for his own good. 

* * *

 

The unsharpened end of the young girl’s pencil taps on the desk—she’s bored out of her mind.

Every single lecture Annie hears is either uninteresting or far past its expiration date. Being trapped in time and in obsolete standards of living is tiresome for Annie, especially as the teacher promotes the importance of turning the gas off in the lanterns lest another incident occurs—what she would _do_ to have electricity again. 

As Annie scribbles answers on her test, she notices how more than her fair share of classmates are scratching their heads or shifting in their spots. Heads slant and bodies are tilting to the side, all for the effort in getting a good angle on Arlert’s test answers. She isn’t surprised; he aces every test and every method Annie proposes in her mind is almost beaten by his, so close in where he’s almost always half a step behind her—or perhaps even ahead if she reads the situation wrong.

After class, the girl whose hunger is never sated and her walking-lollipop-friend tugs at Arlert’s shirt.

“I’m dying here man!” Springer pleads. “It’s not my fault I fall asleep in class! The teachers are just so _boring_. You have to teach me!”

“Y-Yes, me too please!” The young hunter backs her friend up. “Although I can’t pay you...but I promise I can make you dinner!” Her brown head falls into the dirt, thinking she’s whispering to herself when she’s really just as loud, “Even though, I may end up eating it...”

It takes all of Annie’s will to not roll her eyes into the back of her head. Arlert lets a friendly smile rise. 

“I’d be happy to teach you two, but _separately.”_ He bargains. _“_ You two distract each other too much.” 

Sasha and Connie groan out of impending despair but Annie watches the dynamic duo of dumb oblige Arlert almost every day, each having their own times where he guides them through books in the lounging area of the mess hall or on the lighted porches of the barracks. The frustrated teacher flicks his student’s foreheads when he catches them zoning out or displays a disapproving face—which is _unbearably_ boyish—but never is there a day when he misses his lessons with them.

His teachings grow larger in the mess hall as even Arlert’s tan friend extends an ear, listening in on what his friend teaches to the others. With each newcomer who joins in, Arlert goes out of his way to be friendly and is generous with his knowledge. He is intelligent—ruthlessly so, she hears some cadets argue. She’s never seen him break from his pleasant demeanor and actively avoids making waves. 

He’s dangerous, Annie quickly realizes. Frighteningly so. 

This fifteen-year-old flies below the radar as he quietly grows in both friendships and knowledge, the other figures around him so powerful or boisterous that a lazy analysis concludes his friends are the only people to worry about—something which Annie sees is further from the truth.

She’ll have to watch her step around him.

* * *

 

Armin has grown used to the loud snoring and questionable smells wafting about in the boy’s barracks at night, yet he struggles to fall asleep tonight. His eyelids are sealed shut though his mind is stuck in the dark limbo between fast asleep and awake. 

How long has he been sleeping in this rock-hard excuse for a bed now? A full year? No…it has to have been for a little more than that now.

All this time is slipping through his fingers and he doesn’t feel like he’s growing as fast or as much as he should have by now. Mysteries he hoped he’d find a speck of more answers to while training here remain unanswered and there is no shelf in the library in which he hasn’t examined or drawer he hasn’t scrounged through. Instead he learns of all of what they don’t know about Titans and is instructed how to survive in Titan territory and simple math shows Armin that his chances of living in such a scenario is fairly slim if not non-existent. The rising warmth of daylight soon creeps over his eyelids and the tired boy sighs defeatedly. He’s wasted the entire night worrying and, at any moment, Shadis will blare his morning orders through the barracks.

Maybe he’s being impatient or frustration is getting to him. Honestly, Armin isn’t too sure. All the trying teenager knows is he needs _sleep_ and nothing he learns is stopping this anxiety he wakes up to every day. Fears from his nightmares still linger in the dark, cobwebbed corners of his mind, each question he asks being swallowed in the darkness and left unanswered. 

Would he have even joined the military if everything hadn’t happened? 

Would he truly be able to walk along the many landscapes of the world if he tried hard enough?

...Were the ones who did all which ails him and everyone here still out there?

A pebble bops the top of Armin’s head and his eyes shoot open. He rapidly blinks away the sleep in his eyes and his fuzzy morning vision. Dull blue look to the figure idling outside the window of his bed. 

“When you want to pass a test, you make sure you pass with flying colors each time, don’t you?” The bright silhouette outside his window asks. 

“Mnuh?” Armin sleepily garbles. He’s confused and after a couple more blinks, unfocused eyes finally register who he sees. 

Blond fringes fall to the side with Annie’s head tilt. “You don’t back down when you want something.” She comments with a matter-of-fact tone. “Neither of you do.”

Armin stares. He isn’t sure what to say or if she is seeking some particular response from him. He only lies in his bed motionlessly, anxiously staying quiet to hear what she has to say.

Annie’s eyelids lower a fraction. “If I allow you to join in, the same rules with your loud friend applies to you. You’ll wake and work whenever _I_ tell you to. Never the other way around.” 

As if hearing conversation about him was a sixth sense, Eren rises up from his bed next to Armin’s, letting loose a yawn so intense, it stirs two cadets close by. 

“What’s going on here?” Eren inquires sleepily. 

Focused pale-blue home into dazed green before switching back to a gaping Armin. “This invitation is a one-time offer.” Annie rotates her body back around toward the path to the training yards.

It only takes a second for the signal to jolt Armin and Eren awake. They bolt out of bed and sloppily tug on their boots and uniforms before rushing out the door to follow her. 

* * *

 

The enemy of her enemy is her friend, Annie rationalizes in her head.

Magath told her those words years ago and while she was skeptical a man of war could believe such a risky strategy was possible, the warrior in hiding will let these two boys trailing behind her be her guinea pigs. 

She’ll learn from them as they learn combat from her—how they work, what’s their sensitive points, what do they _know_?

Perhaps their naivety can be put to use or perhaps simply being around them will open a doorway to an answer she’s long desired to be found. A crafty part of her mind whispers her willingness to have proteges may even help her chances of landing in the Top Ten, even if she was picky about _who_ exactly she works with for the sake of a better teamwork score.

Her head swings around, watching the two cadets. Yeager tries to guide his smaller friend in tips he’s learned with her, making it seem like knowing these crucial steps is some prerequisite before daring to go toe to toe with her; it’s an arrogant assumption to think he could be a stepping stone to _her_ , but his appreciative friend listens eagerly anyway. Eren’s haughty sneer as he steps into the dirt-ring could rival a hyena’s cunning smile while Arlert watches, his features brimming with beaming eagerness. 

Annie has to restrain a smile toward their enthusiasm. How odd it is to her how two fires so different from each other have bonded to each other so strongly. Neither lacks in intensity but their difference in composition twits a firestorm of blue around Arlert while a roaring blaze of red swirls around Eren.

A slight tingle dances down her spine.

She wonders if its from fear or excitement.

**A/N: The “And the next day” repetition reminds me so much of SpongeBob LOL. Damn it the line has been tainted for me.**

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Mail call!” A gruff voice bellows throughout the camp grounds. “Hurry up or the spare bibs and diapers your mother sent you get tossed!”

People sprint ahead from the command and add to the shoving and pushing growing on every end of the amassing crowd. There’s a myriad of vibes Annie senses from these children’s body language: some appear anxious or unsure while others radiate excitement in seeing what lies beyond a sealed envelope or package. The observant girl takes note of how the trio she monitors closely does not launch themselves into the excited crowd but rather walks away; to Annie, their faces are wrinkled with desire, _wishing_ they could also dive for tangible evidence of love beyond this encampment. 

Near Annie’s left ear, the ponytailed girl who has taken a fancy to her blond friend—a girl who is somehow shorter than _Annie_ — loudly condemns Mina for being so stupid in letting her mother order her dressing habits and mannerisms through a piece of crimped paper. Annie almost sneers when she spots Kirstein move like he’s scratching his armpit only to then cautiously weasel a parcel from his mother under his jacket so no one can see—he’s so laughably a momma’s boy that it’s painful.

“Finally, it’s _here_!” The shaved-head midget announces loudly. He squats with bowed legs as he triumphantly holds his package high over his head. “Actual _fooodddd_!”

“You better share, Springer!” A voice in the distance orders. “You rant about your ma’s cooking but I bet it's no better than a rat skewer from the slums!”

“Yeah!” Kirstein backs up the voice. “You always rave about your mom’s cooking. Now cough up the proof!” 

“Never!” Springer refuses with blazing eyes. “Keep your mangey hands away from my spoils! I worked my ass off for this!”

“So have we! Now hand it over!”

Springer bolts away so quick, a dust cloud is lifted up in his wake right as a stampede of cadets race after him. All want a piece of the food the short fool always raves about and Annie’s lukewarm surprise only shows through two blinks. Rather than watch Springer get dogpiled and have his parcel ripped away by a laughing Kirstein—only for his own package from his mother to fall out from his jacket—Annie is more interested in how the notorious food burglar is the only one not chasing after mouthwatering goodies. Blouse swipes a letter from the soldier’s hand after her name is called and excitement shimmers the gold in her hazel eyes until sadness quickly creeps in.

“Darn it…” The brunette grumbles to herself. Annie looks down and sees the red print of “Return to Sender” rubber stamped on the front. “The letter was returned again…” A deep, heavy sigh blows out from her. “I guess dad moved again.”

“Or he deliberately sent it back.” Annie coldly concludes.

 Blouse noticeably stiffens from her remark.

“Annie…” The pig-tailed teenager exhales from nearby. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“My intent wasn’t to be nice. I’m only saying it’s possible he sent the letter back.” 

 “I-It’s ok, Mina.” Blouse turns around and offers a smile, one which is painfully fake and strained. “Father is tough on me sometimes but it’s because he cares and wants the best for me. He’s always moving around since horse raising is high in demand throughout the kingdom. I can just never remember which village he’s in since I see and talk to him so little now…”  

Annie is good at letting her deadpan stare regard someone like they’re some absurdly shaped caricature who fell out of a painting. The huntress eeps a little at Annie’s doubt and diverts her gaze to the pebble-crusted ground. 

“Father is tough but he isn’t _cruel_. That’s just not him. He’s taught me so much and I want to do him proud.” Blouse grips the letter tighter, her cheeks blossoming with embarrassed red. “Although...uh...I’m going to have to remember what his address is before I can start telling him how I’m doing…”  

“Let’s just look at one of his past letters.” Mina suggests with a grin. “Maybe he mentioned where he is or where he’s going there. Did you store them somewhere?”

“They’re in my trunk...but um...” The taller girl sheepishly scratches the side of her cheek. “I kind of got some leftover stains on most of my stuff. Do you think it will come out of the paper if we clean it?”

“.... Let’s just focus on finding the letters first. _Then_ we’ll cross that bridge.”

Annie’s gaze follows the girl’s backs until they pass through the doors of the barracks. She wonders if Blouse’s desire to inspire pride in her father is born out of true desire or stems from some unconscious sense of duty. From conversations she overheard, Mr. Blouse seems to be more benevolent and caring than Annie’s own father, though by seeing how much the simple notion of disappointing him inspires so much fear in his daughter, Annie wonders if Mr. Blouse has voiced more than just his discontent with his only child’s choices. 

Annie stands in place until Shadis barks the order for everyone to gather at the farthest end of the training yards.  

As she walks alongside the crowd with a faraway look, Annie wonders how Father is doing the entire time. 

* * *

 

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they…?” The freckled boy worriedly inquires to his friend sitting next to him.

“Hey, I told him I was _sorry!”_ Yeager defends. “Armin, remember: if you just side-step, you can dodge punches easily! You won’t get hit next time if you do that!”

“Or maybe you were tossed _again_ by Annie and you falling on Armin scored him that blackeye.” Kirstein smirks smugly from nearby. Brown eyes combat with the blazing green which shoot at him. “Ooo, a _scowl_. That’ll scare off the Titans for sure.”

“Listen here you retard cousin of a donkey.” Kirstein’s rival spits venomously. “I can beat you any time anywhere and— “

 The Asian girl shoves a spoonful of rice into Yeager’s mouth. He gags, those at the table and Annie guessing the spoon went deep enough to poke the back of his throat as he chokes and strains to push away Ackerman’s powerful arm. The table stares at the alabaster skinned beauty as she casually continues eating her meal while her friend finally fishes out the spoon and gasps for air.

“ _Anyway_.” The blackish-blue bruise under Arlert’s eye wrinkles with his smile. “I’m fine, really. Little things like this are worth it if it means I learn something.”

Bott tilts his head curiously. “Is that why you joined the military, Armin? To learn strategy?”

The bright-eyed boy loses a bit of lively blue and scrunches around a face hesitant to divulge such a personal burden. But unlike Annie, Arlert doesn’t hide his reasons.

“In a way, yes.” He responds wistfully. “The idea sank in more after the royal command of retaking Wall Maria with soldiers and refugees. After they came back and said everyone including my grandfather was gone...I felt I needed to be a part of something. And maybe by joining the military, I might be able to stop something like that from happening again.”

Dismay fidgets the black-haired cadet who voiced his eagerness to serve the king. The smaller boy offers a comforting smile. “Not all the Brigade members were on board with the operation, Marco. If you go into the Military Police, I’ll hold nothing against you.” Arlert’s warm smile expands. “You’re a good leader and I bet you’ll be a welcome addition to the King’s ranks.”  

Flattered crimson shines on the bed of freckles peppering Bott’s cheeks. “I’ll certainly do all I can to be. I just...I was unaware of how horrible some of the monarch’s decisions were.”  

Arlert’s gaze wanders to the side then to the ground, looking a little regretful. “I’m sorry. By mentioning this you must think I’m trying to indirectly insult you.”

“N-Not at all!” Bott rebukes with a frantic shaking of his hands. “That just means a lot coming from you. You’re quite a good judge of character.”

Armin glances at his freckled friend like he’s the oddest creature he’s ever come across. “ _You’re_ telling _me_ that I’m a good judge of character?” He asks incredulously. 

 The raise of brow and straightened posture Bott makes could resemble one of a scolding mother. “I see that I’ve got my work cut out for me on both you and Jean.”

“Huh?”

A pint of water slams on the wood panel table. “Enough with the depressing shit!” Kirstein orders loudly. “It’s time to unwind and eat lunch not wallow in self-pity!” 

“Yeah!” Springer follows up after his tallest friend. “Armin, what you should _really_ be concerned about is refreshing me on today’s foraging lecture. I err...I ate weird leaves last time and I’d rather not make the same mistake…” 

Springer breaks out an ink pen and paper, trying to convince the disbelieving Arlert that he’s going to write on a “review sheet” rather than sneak the answers onto his hands for the test. 

Annie hears the racket from Arlert’s table rise from her not-so-far place amongst the dining tables. She’s strongly uncomfortable after realizing someone from this pitiful place could share such an understanding.

Class injustice, internment camps, and a reigning force ruling its subjects with a cruel, iron fist. Arlert has suffered from it much like she’s suffered and their relatives endured a lifetime under these regimes they all had no say in being born into. Like the Eldians are used for Mindless Titan warfare stock, the Walldians sacrificed their own for what the military and a monarchy preaches was for a “greater good”.  

Frost-like blue swivel to her side. Annie logs the flash of self-loathing and frustration flowing in eyes as blue as the rivers of her home’s forest; she sees a bitterness housed in Arlert from being robbed of remaining time with someone he unjustly lost. It’s _too_ familiar.

Annie’s hands shake beneath the table and the tremors must be branching into her elbows as her pig-tailed bunkmate sees and steadily raises a brow. Annie rises from the table then twists her body towards the door. A loud call for her rings out from Mina, asking where Annie is leaving to.

 _Separation is key_ , Annie’s mental voice says.

If ears weren’t tools for eavesdropping, Annie would gladly wound her eardrums enough to deafen herself for a day and heal back the damage later. She doesn’t like hearing about these people’s pasts, seethes in hearing how the poison well of vicious ideology has contaminated even this isolated island; maybe there truly _was_ no hope for the redemption of their race after all.

Annie inhales deep, holding the air in her lungs for a long second until she finally lets her breath go in a quick whuff.

These people have been on her mind too much and Arlert is discomfortingly present in nearly each one of her problems.

She needs a distraction.

Annie mulls over how she will find such a thing as her leather boots crunch through the hardened dirt of the campgrounds.

* * *

 

That night, Annie dreams. 

Often times her imagination produces only a six-hour blanket of white or red-streaked memories of the years when her Female Titan helped Marley keep their status above the world.

But not tonight.

This time, she dreams of all of them—of _him_.

Her mind conjures a world where she can talk to her fellow cadets at breaktime, to be unfiltered and unafraid as she speaks and the boy who can educate everyone listens and answers. She can indulge in their smiles when someone says something funny; she can _want_ to smile. There are no barriers or worries here. Only a ghost of a smile was what Annie allowed the world to see, but as Arlert laughs and his friends feed the commotion, her side-lip curl slowly expands wider and wider until all her teeth show and everyone lifts their cups in some unknown celebration. 

Annie bolts up from sleeping on her side. She breathes shakily as her eyes affirm she is back in the dark night that is her current reality. A curtain of messy bangs moves left to right over her eyes from her head-shake before her hands rub her temples. 

There are so many pressing desires spinning about in her head, all of which have consumed her daily thoughts and musings before bed. Why was it out of all the things her mind chooses to dream of...why was it _that_?

Annie stays up for hours trying to think of an answer. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if its easy to follow along who exactly Annie is referencing. I feel like I am being clear but I’m sure there are some parts which might be confusing.
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I love writing this :DD I feel like the Snk community is a bit quiet lately but maybe its because I’m on and off on here and other accounts lol.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this chapter is long LOL. But I finally finished it ;-;
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me through these long gaps for updates! Work and school consume much of my time so I have few windows to work on this.

 

Armin sees the rain as a form of cleanse. Through lazy days and trying times the wet pattering against his skin is relaxing, even acts as a lullaby when it rapped against his window on more melancholic days.

Today, the rain pours down with brutal force.

A remorseless gush beats down so hard on Armin, he swears indents have drilled themselves into his cloaked back and scalp. Everyone’s boots schlup and slip so much in the pulpy mud, balance becomes a conscious effort to keep. Armin pants non-stop, his legs wobbling from fatigue as he trudges up the forest-riddled incline. He winces as every inch of his inflamed muscles screams at him to _stop,_ to give _up_ already and his desperation to rest makes him cave. His soles sink halfway in the mud as he stops and hunches over, panting heavily to catch his breath. 

His endurance is no good in these scouting missions—everyone is too kind to tell that fact to his face but he _knows_ it’s true. And yet—as if to rub his physical inferiority into Armin’s face further— Shadis sticks him with some of the top rising stars in his regiment. Armin trembles in his spot beneath the rain while his comrades move past him. His jaw steels with frustration and his hands ball into tight fists atop his knees. What so many whisper beneath their breath rattles around in his head—he _is_ useless outside the classroom.

 _The rain is both a fading memory and a distant promise, sweet boy_. A melodic voice resonates in his head. _Just like all your worries._ Armin’s eyelids flutter when a phantom hand from his memory runs through his hair. _The storm will fade soon and so will your troubles. Just relax and breathe._

A piece of Armin’s memory dies with every passing year but Mother’s voice rings so vividly in his head, even after all these years. The only image he remembers of her is a fuzzy face with a ponytail of his hair color but their attachment is powerful enough for him to rehearse a habit they built together. Armin pushes his shoulders back in a deep exhale as he rises up from knees and repeats breathing in and out. Slow and steady. 

They’ve almost reached the mountain’s peak. Just a couple more hours and they’ll have reached their objective.

He has to keep going. 

He _can_ keep going.

At Armin’s side, Connie’s foot slips out to his left and with a loud cry of alarm, he slaps into the brown ooze down below.

“ _Yuck_.” Jean partially sticks out his tongue with his grimace. “Don’t count on me to pick you up.” 

Connie groans tiredly. The young cadet rocks his body side to side, steadily gathering the right momentum. He throws his body onto his right side and plants his hands in the mud, but the slimy earth slides Connie’s hands out and he faceplants into the dirt.

“Mud is Mother Nature’s brownie batter, right Reiner?” Jean smirks sarcastically. “Connie is first to taste test!”

Reiner grunts in time with Connie flopping back onto his back, spitting out the muck in his mouth and wiping his face the whole time.

Jean’s over dramatic pout rivals a bad street actor’s attempt at disgust. “ _Damn_. And I was hoping Momma N’s brownies and mud pies were good.”   

“ _Fuck off_.” Connie growls. “First it rains, then my clothes get wet and dirty, and _now_ I’m sure I’m going to get a damn cold.” Connie’s voice becomes low and gravely as he mimics Shadis, “Only three of you will have your gear but you’ll be limited on gas. It’ll make you strategize better. Oh, by the way, I’m not going to tell you that you have to _walk at an incline the whole way!”_

“I give you a D for your acting job.” Reiner comments with an entertained sneer. “Not bad for street-performing but I wouldn’t recommend being a professional.”

“That’s it. I’m lying here until I become one with nature.”

“Mother Nature is a merciless bitch.” Jean responds coolly. “She’ll spit you out for not being good enough to become one with.”

“Well she’s going to have to deal with it or spit my ass into the sky because I can’t get _up_!”

Reiner—whose body bursts with pure, brutish strength—pulls Connie up by his cloak so quick, he yelps. The strong soldier-to-be holds onto Connie’s shoulders until his friend finds his balance. Armin always finds himself looking up to the strongest male in this group—whether it was through his height or admiring his consistent willingness to come to a comrade’s aid. Reiner smiles encouragingly once Connie finds his balance and lands a slap so hard on his friend’s back, Connie jerks and almost loses his footing again.

“There, you’re all good now.” Reiner motivates with a side-grin. He jabs a thumb toward Jean. “And remember, don’t listen to Scarecrow here. He just likes to stand uselessly and criticize like an old bag.”

“I told you to stop calling me that!” Jean yells.

Reiner flicks bits of mud from his hand into Jean’s face and he sputters and spits out the grime which flew its way into his mouth. “You did. I’m just not listening.”

Armin, Annie, and Bertolt all remain silent. They all start walking again with Reiner leading the pack and Bertolt keeping close by him but Annie stays in the back near Connie and Armin. She doesn’t interact with him—hardly has done so with anybody on this mission—and Armin is sure she avoids the chance of him simply saying “hello” by keeping her hoodie so far over her face, he can only see the tip of her nose. 

She’s been muter lately and Armin has had the gloom cloud over his own head enough times to know when sadness hovers over someone else. His stomach remembers the stabbing sting of Annie socking him in the gut for prodding too much into her well-being— “ _You were off your guard”,_ she bypassed _—,_ using her teacher status to avoid his question. He’ll take the risk of pain again when his lips part. 

“Up here!” Reiner points out before he can speak. “There’s shelter up ahead!”

Armin puts a hand against his forehead to halt the streams of water falling in front of his vision.

The shelter is a farmhouse, one which has been flayed of most of its roof tiles and has an appearance so dilapidated, Armin assumes it’s been abandoned for some time. Wind and rain rattle the windows and upset loose planks on the porch, but to Armin and his group, this place is the only sorry excuse for shelter they will get for the next few miles.

“We’ll rest here for a few hours.” Reiner instructs as they approach the house. “We’ll only strain ourselves if we keep going in this weather.”

All the cadets pick up their pace in excitement to finally have a _break_. Wood boards creak and groan as wet boots clop into the house and the closing of the front door cuts off the streams of brisk air. Belt loops loosen and metal clanks on the floor as maneuver gear falls from aching hips. Armin stretches while others look about the house and the loud exhale Armin whuffs out sounds so relieved, Connie snickers how he sounds like he just took a blissful piss. He’s not so bothered because honestly that’s _does_ sound relieving, especially if he gets to use an actual bathroom and not the woods.

As the group enters the living room, rain beats against cracked windows and there’s a terrible draft seeping through the spacious first floor but the rest of the house looks to be sturdy. Armin sees a barn through one of the broken windows and a cage of wood-rotted fencing where cattle once roamed—the animal shortage must have run this farm out of business.  

“Holy hell a _couch!”_ Connie notices from across the room. He zips over to the mangy, green couch, his face bright with elation. “I call dibs!”

“There’s a perfectly good bed in the other room.” Jean says. “How about you take that and I take the couch?”

“ _No. Way._ The mattress looks and smells like it’s been shit on. _You_ can have it though.”

“I’m the squad leader.” Reiner reminds them both, his chest puffed out for commanding effect and fists resting on his hips. “If anything, I should get the couch.”

There’s a pause.

“I’ll roshambo you for it.” Connie pitches with a fist held in front of him.

“How about we just arm wrestle?” Reiner offers.

“You’ll beat both of us!” Jean complains. “Roshambo or nothing!”

Armin catches Annie rolling her eyes while Bertolt watches the others debate who gets the couch with feigned interest. She unties her wet, bunched hair as she transitions into the kitchen and Armin’s curiosity spurs him to put the first step forward. Bertolt cuts him off and approaches the smaller girl before Armin can take two steps. They are longtime friends, even though Annie seems so distant from him and Reiner. Then again, her way of showing appreciation or recognizing someone is a bit…frosty, but she spreads the treatment over everybody. He isn’t sure if the wetness on Bertolt’s face is from sweat or the rain when he opens his mouth then catches Armin’s sight. The shorter boy smiles awkwardly. He shows his back to the two and decides to roam about the house—they must want some privacy.

Cobwebs line every corner from ceiling to floor and dust buildup thickens the glass covering on hanged family portraits. Every picture is a generic pose with the same black-ink pen, showing how the family of five had grown over the years. They’re nice but Armin’s interest fades after a few glances. He gets ready to venture elsewhere until color dances at the edge of his eye.

A painting of a lush hilltop surrounded by flowers of many colors hangs strong and vibrant at the start of the hallway. Armin marvels at the sight. Throughout the stretch of hallway he walks through, this painter fashioned snowy mountains, sunny meadows, and lush prairies in such breathtaking detail, the side-curl on Armin’s mouth extends into a wide smile. The aspiring traveler follows the trail of painted nature until he reaches a staircase. Two steps up takes him to a house with a water wheel settled beside a sparkling river, a few more steps is a portrait of children running through corn fields, the last is a pond with a full moon’s pearly surface tattooing the pond’s middle. 

His travels then come to an abrupt halt. His eyes narrow into confused slits.

All of the doors on the second story are closed save for one room. When he peers inside, the mattress once on the bed rests on the floor. The top of the twin-sized bed has planks of wood over it and supports a cup of half-filled water and a grimy plate littered with cigarette butts. His nose wrinkles from suspicion and suddenly these closed doors feel more ominous. 

Armin flees back downstairs and his approach towards Bertolt and Annie stops their conversation.

“I’m probably overreacting but…” Armin shifts a nervous glance to the upper level. “Can you come upstairs with me for a sec? I’m just...I’m getting a bad feeling.”

Annie tilts her head. “You’re not having us check for monsters under your bed, are you?”

A displeased lip twitch shows Armin doesn’t appreciate her mocking. “I know, most likely I’m overreacting. I just want to make sure I am. It’ll be quick.”

Annie exhales in disinterest and Bertolt gives an awkward nod and smile before they both don their gear once more. The trio fighting for their couch rights complain for rematches in the background as Armin and his group hike up the stairs. The shing noise of swords unsheathing sends goosebumps running over Armin’s skin. Armin grips the handle of the sword Bertolt offered to him with both hands but the added strength doesn’t help—he can’t stop _shaking._

Annie takes the door handle next to the open room and counts to three with her fingers. Upon three’s arrival, she throws open the door and everyone keeps their swords at the ready. 

Shelves and a floor full of toys and a wooden horse at the far end of the room welcome the group to the dusty play room. Annie’s head swivels around, slowly arching a scathing eyebrow Armin.

“Ok ok! So, I was being a bit skittish. But there are still two more doors!”

Annie sighs and Bertolt pats Armin’s back to console him but he only makes the boy feel ten-times worse. The petite blond takes the handle of the next door and swings it open.

A room bursting with stuffed animals and a pink canopy bed greets their vision.

“I’m _not_ sleeping here.” Annie relays curtly. She turns around to Armin, a presumptuous glint in her eyes. “Do you know someone who would volunteer, Armin?”

“Uh...” The blond male looks up at his black-haired comrade and points. “Bertolt?”

“H-Hey! I’m on your side here!” The tall cadet protests. He grouses in a quieter voice, “And even if I _wanted_ to, the beds here are too small for me anyway...”

Annie—her body and fists tight from being visibly tired of this charade—stomps over to the other door with the boys quickly following after her and yanks open the last door. This time, she doesn’t move.

“Whoa.” Is Bertolt’s first word and Armin’s thought. 

In the master bedroom, the platform bedframe is all that’s left of the queen-sized bed and columns of rectangular, crinkly packages rest atop the entirety of the space. Armin approaches a rickety table in the middle of the room and inspects the small dunes of white powder poured over its surface. A mechanism built from glass and iron rests at the far end and has more packages next to it—no doubt this is some refinement station for drugs.

“This has to be gang-related.” Armin confidently proposes. On the other end of the room, an array of guns and hunting knives are lined along the room’s border, waiting to be used. 

“Most likely.” Annie picks up a package from the bed and fishes out a small bag. She shakes a couple white pills into her palm and eyeballs it closely. “This place is quiet and surrounded by forest. It’s too perfect to resist using it as a manufacturing plant.”

“Ha! I win!” Connie declares so loudly and triumphantly, both Armin and Bertolt leap in their spots. “Now, suck up the loss and help me move this damn thing!”

Armin frowns at the staircase because Connie isn’t close by to see him. He clears his throat to gather his composure.

“It looks like this room has been used recently too.” Bertolt observes nervously. “To have this many guns and drugs in one place…there’s no way they would leave this alone for too long.”

The other two nod stiffly in agreement. Armin exits the master bedroom and compares each room’s state to each other, checking if there are other disturbances they need to be aware of and he finds only the drug room and the mystery tenant’s quarters showing footsteps in the sheet of dust coating the floorboards.

“We need to tell the others about this.”  Armin determines. “I’m not eager to see how these people will react to military trainees finding their headquarters.” He grabs one of the packages as proof of what they’ve found before they ready themselves to leave.

“Uh, guys…?” Connie calls out. The hairs on Armin’s neck stand up from how shaky his friend’s voice has become. “I think you need to come down here.”

Their conversation looms over Armin like warm breath on the nape of his neck and they all dash down the stairs. Connie locks eyes with Armin as runs through the hallway. “Is...is that what I think it is?”

Armin’s brows furrow as he follows where Connie points.

A large brownish-red stain coats the wood boards where the sofa once sat. The sight is startling enough to send Jean and Connie back two steps while Bertolt and Annie stare in surprise. The pointed end of Reiner’s boot digs under and flips over the edge of the rug beneath the coffee table, exposing a stain of the same color hiding in front of the sofa. When Reiner moves everything in the living room, what looks like dried blood covers most of the wooden floor.

Dumbfounded and aghast, panic clamps over Armin’s heart. Reiner—all in his firm and strong presence—keeps his face composed though Armin detects the slight tremble in his hands as he crouches and probes for loose floorboards. One wood board creaks loudly and a knock of his knuckles against the wood signals the hollow underside. Armin’s heart slams against his ribs as Reiner digs his hands into the board’s creases and yanks the splintery wood up.

Reiner’s face turns hard as stone. Clouded hazel quiver in his sockets and his strong chest is visibly tight. 

“Reiner.” Armin whispers shakily. His lips dart over his dry lips, needing another breath when he says, “Show us.”

His eyelids close mournfully. Reiner removes two more floor boards before leaning forward, picking up something which freezes over Armin’s blood.

Cradled between Reiner’s hands is a skull the size of a cantaloupe—a size which resembles that of a small child’s. The invisible hand of panic squeezes Armin’s lungs as Reiner keeps bending down, adding more and more dirt-crusted bones next to the small skull until there are two, three, _four_.

Armin wrenches his eyes shut and rips his sight away. He can’t look anymore. He scarcely hears through the blood pumping in his ears how the body count totals to five with someone retching as a follow-up response. Armin inhales a breath so shaky, air snags and rolls over itself in his throat. He has to calm down. The burning bubbling behind his eyes warns how he _has_ to calm down.  

He turns his body toward the living room window. He tries to focus on the lullaby of the rain again, on his breathing, _anything_ to get his mind off the bodies and blood buried beneath their feet. The now light pattering of rain drums a chorus so soft against the wood and glass, the coiling around Armin’s chest allows itself to loosen slightly. Slowly, his breathing settles down. He opts to opens his eyes again and when murky blue exposes themselves to sight, Armin’s breathing stops entirely.

Caught in the young cadet’s sights is a man—one no older than 20–stopped cold in his tracks outside. Brown, wide eyes stare into startled blue through the cracked living room window and the standoff stops the world from spinning for 2 long seconds.

The man quickly spins on his heel and sprints back from whence he came but not before Armin can shout. “ _There_!” 

Everyone stares dumbfoundedly at the window and those who don’t have their gear curse in frustration as the man re-enters the forest. Armin’s breath catches when Annie sprints through the living room and with a swift, leaping kick, glass explodes around her body as the window breaks open.

“Annie!” Armin and Bertolt call to her. Her maneuver gear’s anchors eject ahead of her and blasts her body forward until she is swallowed whole by the forest.  “Wait!”

* * *

 

Branches and leaves whip Annie’s face, but the sting is nothing she can’t steam away quickly. The sound of a horse clopping away at full speed is all Annie is focused on. She’s never been more thankful than in this moment to be small enough to easily maneuver through the tight lanes of bushy branches and leap off trunks from more awkward swings. A tan face drenched with both rain and sweat shoots to the side when she draws closer, glaring daggers into Annie. The man pushes himself up on the saddle’s stirrups and just as he nocks an arrow, pulls back at lightning speed and fires.

A thread of blood flies off from Annie’s cheek from where the arrowhead grazed her cheek. A blast of steam twirls her body around, dodging one more arrow whizzing past her torso and another through her legs as she swings away. Pink lips pull down into an embittered snarl; she can’t risk getting her clothes or body damaged _damn it_.  An eject of hooks forward pull Annie up and behind a thick tree trunk just before two arrows thunk into the wood. 

She hops from one sturdy branch to another, arrows thudding into wood around and behind her and for the most fleeting of seconds, keeps hidden beneath the tree’s mast, allowing the man precious seconds to keeping storming ahead. Thick, green bushes all around the trained warrior hide her body and her intent.

Her hooks reach up higher into the forest’s canopy, keeping her only a blur above the leaves until she finds the sweet situation she craves. The man exclaims in fury beneath her, his hand floundering in the saddle’s empty bags for more arrows and in that moment, the hooks on each of Annie’s hips reach out to the branch awning the man approaches. Annie is throttled forward and bursts through the forest’s green ceiling, strands of pale yellow on the sides of her face, her teeth grit in focus.

The man twists his head backward as she flies at him, his brown eyes blown wide.  

Her foot slams into the back the man’s neck and a sickening snap rings out from her heel.

The man flies forward and rolls along the ground until he stops and flops on his side. The horse sprints on, soon vanishing from sight entirely when Annie descends onto the slippery floor with her gear. The man doesn’t move and the brown eyes who bore hatred into Annie’s have life’s light snatched out of them.

Annie stands as motionless as the man lays. She’s killed again and this time, the thought doesn’t bring forth the need to vomit as it had done all those years ago.

She feels nothing. 

“Annie!” Annie’s chin flies up when Bertolt and Reiner swing over to her. Annie isn’t surprised they are the first to catch up with her.

“Are you alright?” Bertolt asks worriedly as he runs up to her. “What happened?”

“ ‘m fine.” She answers dryly. Her side-glance toward her fellow Warriors radiates unyielding remorselessness. “He was going to get away, so I had no choice.”

The sadness shaking Bertolt’s dark eyes irritates Annie so much, she wants to kick the weakness out of him—he should have accepted by now that this is the action their lifestyles demand of them. “Did we really have to kill him? Couldn’t we have just captured him?”

“The other options were immobilize him and have to carry his useless self until we got back to base or use my swords.” She rationalizes curtly. “Imagine how the team would freak out if I easily took a life. This was the easiest way.”

The concern on Bertolt’s face melts away. “Ah, I see.” He shares with her one of his nervous, twitchy smiles, but Annie shifts her attention elsewhere. “Leave it to you to always think ahead.”

Reiner nods sternly in agreement. “You’ll get no condemnation from me. But to be safe, we’ll keep the specifics from the others.”

“His neck broke when he fell off his horse.” Annie pitches. “It’s an easy story.”

The other two appear to concur. Angry, hazel eyes fall onto the body sprawled out on the floor.  “What a horrid creature. How many other families has he wounded through not just his violence but his drugs too?” He shakes his head, genuinely disgusted. “Despicable crime, even for a Devil.”

Annie scowls at the floor. Her comrade is quick to accuse and could hang the sword of treachery over her head should she step out of line in Reiner’s indoctrinated mind. She keeps her tongue locked down this time.

“Don’t be so open with that, especially with the others closing in.” She shoots a death glare to her comrades out of impatience. “Now let’s hurry up and get our stories straight.”

* * *

 

Armin is downcast the entire time Annie explains how the man fell off his horse and broke his neck during her pursuit. He’s even more grieved as Jean and Reiner lay out the bones of the deceased side by side in the garden behind the dilapidated house. Two adults and their three children were caught in the middle of a drug trader’s growing territory. Each of the party members takes a shovel and work well into the late evening to give these forgotten people a proper burial. Once the bodies are beneath the earth and their respects to the dead are given, all the group leaves behind is the murderer rotting beneath the downpour. 

They flee into the barn across the field to escape from the ghosts in the house. A few hours of recovery is all Reiner allows and after everyone has gone to bed, once the fact of victims being laid to rest outside their hiding place is somehow pushed to the farthest parts of their minds and sleep quiets everybody, Armin carefully gets up. He puts on his cloak and enters the calm, rainless night. 

Armin has to walk a little ways but he inevitably finds the drug dealer’s body. He grabs the deceased’s ankles and drags the body toward the fencing where cattle had grazed then grabs a shovel. He struggles to dig through sopping mud and his hands slip on the wooden handle but he keeps trying. This is probably the stupidest idea he’s ever had and he’s only increasing the chance of getting a cold or alerting wildlife, but he keeps pushing through the ache in his arms and legs. 

“What are you doing?”

Armin’s foot slips on mud and trips onto his knees. The part of his eyes not covered by his hood spots Annie standing above him, wearing her hoodie and staring down at him. He gulps a little, feeling like some insignificant flee under her scrutinizing gaze.

“Digging.” The boy answers weakly. He picks himself back up and starts shoveling again.

“If it’s his stash you’re looking for, I wouldn’t hold your breath. You’ll be digging forever.”

“I’m not interested in _that_.” Armin hears himself hiss. 

“Then why are you wasting your time out here?”

“Because…” Armin gulps hard. “I just felt like I had to.”

Annie scoffs before she crosses her arms.

“He doesn’t deserve to be buried like the others.” She points out seriously. The maliciousness in her tone sets him on edge.

Armin’s shovel stops in the mud. 

“Maybe…” Armin starts.

“What do you mean _maybe?”_ Annie derides his answer. “I thought the dead family showed he was ill intentioned but just for recent events, he also shot at me.”

“I never said he wasn’t!” He hurriedly defends. “What I was _starting_ to say is maybe he doesn’t deserve to be buried, yes! But…” The anxious soldier’s breathing becomes strained again. “But who's to say he did this to that family in the first place? Where’s the proof?”

Deep grooves form between pale-blond, bunching brows. “He _ran,_ Arlert. That’s more than enough to prove he’s guilty.”

“Is it? There were drugs and illegal weaponry in the house. Who’s to say he didn’t run because he was afraid of being caught? And those bodies...they looked to have been decaying for some time. Maybe someone else did the crime?”

Annie snorts in disbelief. “That’s a stretch.”

“What if it isn’t?”

Annie tilts her hip, her tight body language voicing she’s not convinced. “Ok, I’ll humor you. Say that is the case. He _didn’t_ kill that family. How are you then certain he wasn’t an accomplice? He could have stood watch or known about there being bodies beneath the house but did nothing about it. The operation in that house is clearly gang-related and that signs him up for the guilt from all of the other people he and his cronies hurt. I doubt anyone in the drug trade doesn’t attempt or at least threaten murder, especially with the contraband he was hiding.” Annie’s chin tilts up, radiating with the threat for him to challenge her. “He still sounds guilty.”

He understands her point, even agrees all of what she said is the most likely scenario. 

And still Armin doesn’t know _why_ he remains so conflicted. The man was hardly older than all of them and the young boy’s time of living as a street rat showed him how desperation sours both a person and their decisions. Armin tries two times to swallow past the blockage in his throat until finally, nervous eyes steel and rise. Annie’s eyes are almost transparent and her frown shows she’s impatiently waiting for an answer.  

“You’re right—he doesn’t deserve to be buried.” Armin agrees with a slight tremble to his voice. “That’s why his grave will be unmarked. No one will know where he is and no one will know where to find him—he’s gone like the world needs him to be…and yet,” Armin mulls over how to word this odd entanglement of feelings knotting his chest and plugging his throat. “Someone may have loved him like this family loved each other once. Maybe there’s people out there with fond memories of who he was before…and maybe for that reason alone, he at least deserves to be put into the ground. That way, nature can take away the bad parts and find the good from what he once was.” Armin stares pensively at the mud-caked end of his shovel. “Maybe that's the only thing the worst of us can do in the end: bring some life into the world with the body we leave behind.”

The teenager believes he’s made a half-assed argument at _most_ and tries to ignore the fact that Annie can quip he just needs to leave the body out and the job is already done. He must sound as crazy as some whacko spouting the apocalypse is nigh from his soap box. Armin’s addled mind churns with potential comebacks and snide remarks she can so easily make and Annie’s silence is _not_ helping his nervousness. 

The darkness shadows most of Annie’s face save for the light blue disks which pierce through the depths of night. They seem permanently filled with doubt but glow in such a hauntingly, hypnotizing way, Armin can’t look away. 

“Your philosophy is strange, Arlert.” Annie finally says after a long silence.

The nervous cadet is unsure what to say, especially after she continues to say nothing. “Um...thanks, I guess?”

 _That_ makes Annie scoff. Armin then so much as blinks and the splintery shaft of the broom is stripped from his hands. 

“If you’re going to do one thing wrong, you might as well do the other right.” Annie says. “Get another shovel and help me.”

Armin’s smile is small but beams with appreciation. They work together to push the loose mud to the sides and form a small trench. Once the trench reaches a comfortable depth, they slide the body into the pocket of earth and pile muddy slop onto the corpse. A hunter’s eye might tell the ground here has been tampered with so Armin throws bush leaves and twigs about the area, hoping it’s enough to veer someone off the scent. He dusts his hands off on his pants before looking toward Annie.

“I meant what I said.” Armin says right as Annie looks at him. A warm smile standing bright and ear to ear adorns his lips. “Thanks. For helping me and listening.”

Like he expected, Annie doesn’t react but rather nods before turning away from him. “We should get back. We’re leaving soon and I’m dirty after helping you with your moral charity work.”

 

* * *

 

Sun peeking through the morning clouds descends like a spotlight onto the group. The mountain-side’s trail is a persistent incline and per the map Arlert examines, the climb will continue on for another couple of miles. The lack of trees keeps the sun’s dull warmth on them and it’s a welcome shift from walking in damp clothes and constantly shifting ground. The flag the group needs to retrieve to prove their mission successful draws closer and closer and the fact spurs everyone to walk with a bit more upbeat attitude. Everyone doesn’t speak of or has chosen to forget what happened yesterday and the group carries on as they would on any other day. Unlike them, yesterday continues to gnaw belligerently at Annie’s mind. Her focus stays fixed on the back of who walks in front of her.

Annie is and remains to be puzzled by this boy.

He’s voiced so many hardships in conversations she’s overhead, has seen his eyes hold the contempt and bitterness she expects to see from someone so traumatized, but he never acts on the negativity she knows simmers in him. His eyes remain open doors in the face of turmoil in contrast to Annie’s closed off ones. His openness can be annoying and often times exposes his obvious lack of self-worth, but he’s brave enough to put his fears out there unlike Blouse or others in their regiment.

She can’t deny that she respects him a little for acting in such a way and now the feeling is faintly more so after he voiced his reservations against the criminal they buried together. She doesn’t believe his sadness is warranted on such a low-life, thinks he wasted their precious hours of sleep on a useless crusade of “instilling moral principles”.

Or perhaps she’s projecting. Her self-worth meter is low just like him only she’s much better at hiding it.

There’s a distant groaning and a snap at to her side and Annie’s side-glance reveals the shortest of the group is stretching. “I don’t know about you guys but I’m taking a nice long nap when we get back.” Springer says. “I slept like absolute _shit_.”

 

“I’m pretty sure all of us did…” Bertolt murmurs.

 

The shorter boy shrugs. “Exactly. Which is why we all need a nap. And when we’re allowed to go into town, I’m using that time to sleep _again_!”

 

“Doesn’t that sound nice.” The tall loud-mouth in front of Annie breathes out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Ugh, this mission just drags on _foreverrr_.” Kirstein drawls. “Why the hell did Shadis plant these flags so far away _?_ I bet the other teams have beat us by now. Last place, here we come!”

 

“Stop whining.” Reiner reprimands behind them. His eyes deviate to the sky where a large flock of birds fly over them. “We’ll be back soon enough and if we explain what we found, Shadis will understand. He’s an asshole but he can be reasoned with.”

 

“What else am I supposed to do? It’s not my fault this walk is boring as hell.”

 

“I’ve got a fix for that!” Connie says confidently. He puts a thumb and forefinger to his chin and eyes their surroundings. “I spy with my little eye…”

 

“If you say something that’s green or brown, I’m going to hit you.”

 

“Jean, _stop it_.” Reiner orders in a sterner tone. “Either play the damn game or shut up.”

 

“I don’t _want_ to play; I want to go home! The barracks smell like rank mushrooms and sweat but I’d rather be there than have to spend one more day out here. Our rations are compressed bread-air, all of you _and_ I reek from nasty B.O, I’ve got bug bites everywhere and—damn it.” Kirstein twists around, inspecting the distant cracks and rustling around them. His frustration tugs his mouth down farther. “Who the _hell_ keeps making that cracking noise?! It’s freaking me out!”

 

Springer puts up his hands. “It’s not me.”

 

“Wildlife.” Annie says as she watches a mountain goat scamper away.

 

“No, the sound isn’t from _any_ of us.” Reiner remarks. He walks forward then stops like a deer caught in front of a gun muzzle. All of them listen. The groans turn into louder and louder cracks and a rush of sound soon adds to the melody.

 

“What the hell...?” Kirstein questions through a tight jaw. Annie comes to a realization right as Kirstein grits out, “Oh come _on_ …”

 

“ _Mudslide!!_ ” Reiner yells. “Run!”

 

The cadets shriek in alarm when a mud torrent blasts over the large boulders farther out in front of them, breaking all of the smaller trees and adding to the stream of gunk. They all sprint back down the trail, dodging the next river of mud bursting over where they once stood. Brown globs of sludge races down the mountain’s decline, forcing the man-made trail there to collapse and break off into the pulpy wave.

 

The rumblings from falling boulders and trees draws multiple splits in the trail’s foundation. Everyone sprints at top speed and when Reiner and Bertolt turn the pathway’s corner, the fissure runs deeper. When Annie runs over the edge after Springer does, the damaged dirt-corner splits, crumbling away from the main road. Annie shouts in panic as her body is dragged to the side and she tries to see if she can aim her hips to cling her anchors onto something, but there’s nothing in sight which can bear her weight. Arlert grabs her forearm just as she starts to fall but the soil loosened by rain betrays his footing and the added weight breaks the edge entirely.

 

Both cry out in alarm with the group shouting behind them as they tumble and roll down the steep mountainside. A fetal position and forearms tight over Annie’s face guard her against the twigs snapping beneath her body and smaller rocks gouging her sides. Her gear is long gone, she’s going down _too fast,_ and Annie tries to move her arms to latch onto something. A deep slice down her forearm and a tree stump thwapping her shins stops her. She grunts and whines through the abuse until finally, her body approaches a leveling of ground. After a few more rolls, Annie stops on her belly.

 

She winces, not eager in having to brace the pain of her wounds which ripped her clothes rather than use steam to stitch herself up. Cut hands tremble as they plant into one of the twig-leaf piles littered around her body. She pushes herself up to ensure their safety and sees the flow of mud continues over only toward where they once traveled to. Relief blows the hair strands in her face up before they fall back down.

 

A strangled groan rumbles nearby and Annie ears shoot up.

 

“ _Armin_!” She overhears someone panic. Annie twists onto her side, seeing Kirstein’s heels form mud trench along the steep decline until he stops at his friend’s side.

 

Her throat closes at what she sees; Arlert’s leg is clearly broken—the shin slightly bent to the side—and bits of wood stick out from his arm all the way to his shoulder blade. Shaken concern breaks her composure and Annie rushes to get up. Her feet trip over themselves when she stands but she pushes through the pain throbbing in her legs until she is at her teammate’s side.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Kirstein’s attempt at touching Arlert’s leg earns him a pained groan of protest. The frustrated cadet shouts in frustration. “ _Fuck!_ This mission can’t get any _worse_!”

 

“ _Shut up_ and talk quietly.” Annie hisses in a low voice. “Let’s get him out of here and find a safer place. This area is unstable.”

 

The teenager worried for his friend grinds his teeth but he nods. Annie hears the calls for them and when they come into view, her finger zips over her lips. She points to where they are heading so they could follow them.

 

“I’m sorry, guys…” Armin speaks through a strained voice. He coughs, exposing the light gloss of red over his teeth. “I seem to be a magnet for these kinds of things.”

 

“Apologize when we’re safe.” Annie takes off her hoodie and through the wounded boy’s hissing and resistance, wraps and ties her jacket around his leg in a makeshift splint. She grabs a hold of his ankles while a nervous Kirstein puts his arms under Arlert’s underarms to wrap around his torso. “Just hang onto his forearms and we’ll get you out of this mess.”

 

Arlert grunts as they slowly lift him until both she and Kirstein stand straight. The blond teenager’s face is tired and lined with small cuts yet through the pain clearly wracking his body, the sides of his lips pull up. “I was never worried that you couldn’t.” He says hoarsely. “When do you not know what to do, Annie?”

 

Annie’s blank face doesn’t show how her stomach is in freefall from his words. The feeling is…unsettling and her cheeks suddenly feel warm. Before her body can act on its own accord, her neck twists around to watch where they walk.

 

They soon reach a flat meadow in tandem of Reiner and the others catching up with them, their strongest comrade carrying a thick branch to better the splint she made. Annie watches as Reiner places the branch next to Arlert’s leg and unwraps blankets and bandages from his pack to fit him for a cast.

 

This boy and his friends are their supposed enemies. She should feel nothing for them, and in some ways, she still doesn’t. But she would be a liar if she denied how panic and concern for where everyone was consumed her mind throughout the time they ran from streams of earth. Now her worried gaze doesn’t leave from the horrible bend of Arlert’s leg, the slices cutting his flesh and clothes all around his limbs.

 

Today marks the first day when Annie wishes she could transfer her healing abilities to another person. She didn’t even feel this way towards the father she permanently injured or the civilians she helped wipe off the face of this island.

 

This desire was only towards the boy who smiles at her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should re-tag this with “Slow burn” LOL. At least, it’s felt like that to me. I’m happy with what I’ve written but I’ve been dying to get to these later chapters. xD


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so fun to write haha. Writing the build-up was fun too but it doesn't compare to getting to these scenes. xD Hope you guys enjoy this!
> 
> Gotta spread that music love too because these wonderful pieces helped out my writing/story plotting so much ;-;. To give you a forecast on updates, most likely it will be either once a month or a little under a month. Holidays are coming up so my time will be eaten up a bit more.
> 
> [Shimmering in the Shallows-Vindsvept](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjoxsVV6fFo)
> 
>  
> 
> [On the Twilight Strand-Vindsvept](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R13ZFFqoOgA)
> 
>  
> 
> [In Winter's Grasp-Vindsvept](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPRnA-3q6zo)

Bedsheets collect into a ball within Armin’s tightening fists. Pains from his damaged arm and shoulder are nothing but pesky twinges which he can easily handle. The blazing inflammation fire thumping in his casted leg is another story.

He’s nowhere near healed yet and there are hardly any moments where he’s “comfortable” as the nurse so kindly asks. The infirmary beds have lumpy mattresses, his cast is itchy, sweaty, and he is _not_ looking forward to another sponge bath—showering with the other boys with a giant towel wrapped around an already thick cast would be _embarrassing_ but less so than his physique being seen by a young female nurse. The only thing keeping his pain tolerance high and anxiety low is the lung-emptying relief of finally being safe within the confines of their camp.

“You should just take the pain medication already.” A voice close by remarks. “You’re not being brave by denying yourself something so basic.”

Almost every hour now, Annie has been telling him to swallow the horrific tasting stuff the nurse left but one dose his first night here was all he needed to keep saying no. The foggy dizziness raging in his head coupled by a tendency to drool and blurt random things was not a state the young cadet enjoyed, just like he wasn’t thrilled about waking up on the floor from having fallen off his bed this morning.  

“No thanks.” Armin responds appreciatively. “I’m not a big fan of the after-effects and the nurse said the worst of the pain is in the first couple of days. It’s not like I’m getting out of this bed anytime soon with all my injuries.” A reassuring smile hikes up his lip’s edges. “I’ll be okay. At least the healing salve helps soothe my other injuries.”

Annie—outfitted in a tank-top and shorts—sits with a slouch and is crossed legged on the bed next to him. The bandage over the bridge of her Roman nose crinkles from disagreement. “And because the greater pain is within those two days, it's all the more reason to _take.the.medicine_.”

“Please don’t worry, Annie. I-” Armin is cut off when her feet fall to the wood floor, her body leaning to the side to pick up the cup at his bedside. He jerks back in time with her shoving the cup into his face and lightly pushes against the cup she’s presses into his palms. “Annie, really! I-I’m okay!” The cup’s edge is so close, the rancid medicine smell is enough to irritate his nostrils. He slaps his hands over his mouth when her free hand makes a grab for his wrist. “‘Mm-phine!” His muffled rebuke assures her. “I svear ‘Mm-phine!”

Annie leans back and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I knew you can be stubborn but this is ridiculous. You’re stupid for a couple days when drinking this stuff. So what? It’s worth it so you won’t suffer needlessly by _not_ taking it.” When she slams the cup down on the nightstand at his bedside, moonlight reflects in eyes greyed from frustration. “It’s as if you’re trying to act like the brave hero everyone’s making you out to be. Well your _act_ is going too far.”

His gut clenches from her words and at first, a series of bewildered blinks and quirk of brows is all Armin can respond with. “Is that why you think I tried to help you?” His tone is full of surprise and to a keener ear, sounds a little hurt. “To be some kind of hero?”

A tremor at the edge a thin, blond brow is all Armin gets before she says, “I’ve seen how you try to prove yourself. It’s not an impressive display, but you try anyway. And you attempting to save me was stupid of you.  You only got yourself injured when we could have isolated the damage to only myself.”

 Bunched eyebrows which are thicker than the average boy’s upturn softly. “That would be awfully heartless of me to do to anyone, Annie.” 

“Then why are you even here? Your friend is dead set on joining the Survey Corps and I wouldn’t be surprised if you follow him. You don’t think you’ll have to make snap decisions for the benefit of the group after you graduate? Ones which will leave others behind?”

Armin fidgets against the pillows keeping his back supported up—he’s not understanding why this conversation had to take such a serious turn. “One of my teammates was in trouble and I was the only one who was close enough to help.” He rationalizes with ease. “That’s all the reason I needed.”

Annie crosses her arms but not before she slips back onto the bed into a crossed-leg sit. “You say that now. I wonder if you’ll think the same way when Titans or bandits are running after you.” 

He shrugs. “I don’t see why I would change my decision even in that scenario.” 

“You can’t hide what you really think from me.” Annie says so sharply and cold, ice floods Armin’s veins. “You’re not an idiot and you know emotions can’t bleed into group decisions. You say all of these feel-good things but you operate and engage based off logic just like I do. And what you did was _not_ logical.”

“I don’t understand why this is such a big deal.” Armin fights back out of genuine confusion. “How was I even supposed to know the ground would collapse beneath us?”

“Because you bother to use your brain and big boulders falling all around us equals cliffs and walkways crumbling. You’d catch that even if you were half-asleep.” 

Armin runs his palms over his tense, damaged shoulders and groans from discomfort—he _hates_ this conversation. He hasn’t even sorted his own thoughts out about everything and he’s not appreciating being prodded about a foggy memory. “Honestly, Annie, I-I don’t even want to talk about this subject. Not after everything that has happened. Can’t we just take solace in us being safe for now?” 

He _swears_ the older girl straightens her back for the dramatic effect of how she’s made her point. “All I’m saying is think about it. Mostly because I was no fan of being supported by your loud-mouth friend the whole way back here. At least Reiner could have carried me on his back instead of you if I was the only one hurt.” 

A smile squirming with embarrassment and understanding wiggles up Armin’s face. He’s at least appreciative he knows _which_ loud-mouth she’s condescending this time— Annie often lumps Eren and Jean together, so he gets confused on which of the boys yelling at the top of his lungs is the one she finds more annoying.

“I’m not saying your reasoning isn’t sound either, Annie.” Armin begins to say. By no means is he trying to get into an argument with Annie as all he wants to do is end this conversation quickly so he can read under the candlelight _._ “But I don’t think I could stand myself if I didn’t at least _try_ to help. I can’t say I won’t do the same thing in a more dire situation, but honestly, I don’t know. I’d like to say I won’t but...I can’t say for sure.” Sheepishly, he tries to offer a grateful smile. “I’m sorry if I scared or disappointed you.”

Annie’s face scrunches with disdain. “I wasn’t scared.” She fires back a little too defensively. “It’s more like because you did what you did, now we’re both sitting here miserably.”

“Oh...,” He marinates in her words for a bit. “I guess I can agree with that then.” An owl hooting and leaves rustling outside the window nearby are the only noises around them for a couple seconds. “Well, while this situation isn’t the happiest one...I’m glad we have each other while we recover here. Books are good company but people are better ones.” 

A smile produced from genuine happiness graces Armin’s face though Annie only stares with eyes hollowed by fatigue then redirects her sight to her bandaged arms. 

“Whatever makes you feel better, I guess.” 

Armin chuckles low in his throat. Annie’s somewhat relenting response is the best response he’s gotten from her all day and he’ll take it. Covered hands similar to the bindings brawlers wear in the matches within the underground unwrap the brownish-red bandage wrapping over her forearm and as she moves, Armin realizes this is one of the very few times he’s seen Annie not wear her hoodie. Her frame is obviously thin and petite but every motion of her arm twirling from unwrapping flexes her small, strong biceps and highlights the pronounced muscle line splitting her forearm and triceps. Armin always knew she was stronger than she’ll ever believe but he is surprised by how her physique is much more cut than her sweater lets on.

A gash stitched from her elbow up to the middle of her arm exposes itself to the air and Armin’s blood immediately curdles. She bled profusely from that arm, her body is riddled with bruises or slashes, her pale shins reveal uncomfortably large purple-yellow bruises which scale nearly half of her leg, and still, she fought through this visible misery to escort him to safety. He doesn’t doubt she must feel insulted in some way to deny himself medical help when they fought so hard to bring him back and remembering everyone’s efforts sows the seed of guilt deeper in Armin.

He didn’t hear Annie get up as he explored his thoughts but he did catch her sudden, sharp hiss. Worried blue fly over to see Annie’s scratched fingers twitching as her forearm soaks in the warm water bowl on the nightstand.

Alarmed, Armin twists around to his side to grab the medicinal drink and almost immediately, he yelps in pain. The series of holes in his back pulse from strain, adding to the agony aching in his broken leg and lower back. Trembling fingers finally manage to reach his cup and he holds it up to her. 

“Here,” He strains to say with a level voice. “If I’m not going to drink it, someone else might as well. You need it more.”

Neutral orbs with the strength of the crystal-blue shimmering in them stare at the cup. Annie reaches out for the brown cylinder in his hands only to shove the edge so far back into him, liquid splashes against his sternum. “Stop offering me something which is yours. Keep it. I have plenty of salve left.”

Armin doesn’t feel like having another dispute so he sighs and nods his head. While she’s looking, he decides to take the _tiniest sip—_ enough for him to believe he won’t be rendered too much of a bumbling mess again—to show he is grateful for all she did. Annie only keeps reapplying her salve over her wounds and rewraps her arms and hands with new bandages. Armin reaches for his own salve to remedy his wounds before bed. The mountain of feather pillows against his back isn’t set up as comfortably as he likes and the pillows flop about around all while he tries to get his own shirt off. He then hears a quiet grumble in the background. Before he can twist around, a palm is on the middle of his back and Armin jerks like he’s leapt out of his own skin. 

“Just relax and let me help.” Annie shuts him up before he can ask what she’s doing. With a nurse's gentleness, she gradually leans his body forward. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

He obeys and tries not to tremble like a leaf out of awkwardness as Annie stuffs an extra pillow behind his back for more cushion before rearranging them. The proper settling of pillows is a bit relieving to Armin but his ease turns to tension when Annie lifts up the hem of his shirt. His breath comes in short raspy hisses all while a soaked, warm cloth blots over the mess of back injuries until a ribbon of salve is wiped over overheating wounds. A sigh leaves him after that. His eyelids lower as Annie applies more salve, slowly fluttering open and closed from being free from pain for a short while before he finally shuts his eyes.

His skin becomes familiar with the unexpected softness of Annie’s fingers as they work over arm and back muscles he wishes were as strong and bulky as Eren’s. Her palm is warm on his back as she keeps bandages steady over the area of wounds before taping them shut with a slide of her hand. Armin imagines how her arms are moving like they did while unwrapping her bandages, how her body swayed and moved, so fluid and routine, Armin is caught in a trance of the motion. How fingers which ball into a fist which cripples are so gentle and leave tingling ghost trails of feeling along his muscles when they move...

Trenches crease the space between Armin’s brows.

That’s odd. 

He’s never thought about such things about her in detail before. 

Annie pulls away before his mind can churn wildly again. Her sight is aimed at the wall in front of him and she awkwardly rubs her afflicted arm before clenching her bicep. “I never did say thanks.” Annie mumbles hardly loud enough for him to hear. “For trying to catch me. So, thanks.”

Armin’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead from surprise. When he finally finds his voice after two long seconds, Annie is already in bed twisting around in her bedsheets with her back aimed at him.

* * *

 

 The next day, the infirmary nurse allows Annie and him to have visitors. Soon after daily training is complete, the large number of people rushing into the infirmary warms and fills Armin’s heart to near bursting point. There are hardly any chairs so Eren and Mikasa sit on his bed while Ymir takes over the last bed for herself with a repeated eyebrow raise toward Krista implicating she is invited too. Reiner and Bertolt wave to him as they walk over to stand by Annie’s bed while Connie sprints in with Sasha, Marco, and Jean not far behind him. Sasha keeps running until she is next to Armin and slams her hands down on the bed.

“ _Armin!!_ ” Sasha yells so loud into Armin’s face, wheat-colored bangs rush upward and uplift the hair over his ears. “ _How are you feeling?!_ ”  

“I said he broke his _leg_ not his ears, Sasha.” Jean sighs as he moves to stand next to her. 

“No. You specifically his ears were broken.”

“ _I didn’t-”_ Jean shakes his head to erase the frustration reddening his face. “You know what? Never mind.” Jean turns his attention to Armin. “Feeling better?”

Armin’s nod is slight but his smile is bright toward everyone. “The pain comes and goes but I’m grateful it’s not worse.” He slightly bows his head forward in gratitude. “Thanks again for all your help, everyone.”

“We don’t leave fellow soldiers behind.” Reiner chimes in with firmly crossed arms. “You took the pain like a champ the entire way here and it must not have been easy. I’m proud of you.” 

Flattered crimson ever so slightly tints Armin’s face and his smile becomes bigger. “Ah, that’s very kind of you to say. I was calm only because I knew I was in great hands.”

“It’s good to hear you’re getting better.” Marco smiles pleasantly at him. “You were greatly missed in class today! I needed my maneuver gear repair partner.” 

“I _said_ I did my best.” Jean huffs at his freckled friend. “Sheesh. You accidently break a wire and belt and you pay for the mistake for the rest of your life.”

“Yes, we’re glad you’re on the mend.” The angelic voice of Krista relays to him. Eyes nearly as blue as his own sparkle with relief and Armin is flattered she is touched so much by his well-being. “You had us so worried.”

“Sure, worried.” Ymir sneers next to Armin. Her foot bobs up and down as she lays down with her hands behind her head. “More like surprised for me because when I first heard someone attempted to save another person, I assumed _you_ were the damsel in distress and your boyfriend Jean here got hurt trying to save you.” Ymir sighs in overexaggerated disappointment. “I thought there was no way I could lose, but I guess I lose my bet. You’re not _entirely_ spineless. Just a weakling.”

Armin isn’t sure whether to be insulted or grateful toward Ymir; the only one sure of anything is Jean whose twitching sneer exposes how he’s mentally contemplating his revenge right that second.

Krista—her fists on her small hips—frowns at her friend. “Ymir, for once try to mind your manners especially when Armin and Annie are tired enough as it is.” She berates. “He doesn’t need to be made fun of for trying to help someone in need, especially after everything they’ve been through.”

“Hmmm.” The freckled girl croons. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. It depends.” Ymir’s hand shoots out for Krista’s wrist, her back arching from the bed as her wrist hovers over her forehead. “I will but only if you know that I’ll also act in such a courageous fashion for you, my sweet Krista. And when such a day comes, the tale of how our matrimony came to be is something the history books will praise for generations!”

Reiner and Jean nod repeatedly while scratching their chins—being a little _too_ curious in Ymir’s words—and Armin has to _try so hard_ to keep up his straight face, trying not to implicate how his mind is also wandering into spaces he probably shouldn’t be exploring. Krista, her face bright red and body now stuck in between Ymir’s ferocious hug, sighs. Solemn eyes transition back to Armin.

“I’m sorry for what all of you went through, truly.” The girl laments wholeheartedly. “If I could take the images away from all of you, I would. I-...I can only imagine how awful that house must have been.”

A heavy silence loomed over the infirmary ward. With all his heart, Armin is thankful for Krista’s sympathies but he wishes she never brought this topic up. The images of children’s skeletons aren’t easy to push into the back of one’s mind.

“I should have been there.” Eren snarls viciously from the end of the bed. His fist slams into his palm, his knuckles grinding against himself so hard, Eren’s clenched digits almost turn completely white. “If I was, I would have taught that fucker a lesson.”

“It’s done, Eren.” Armin reassures his friend. “The man is gone and we’re here. Nothing else matters.”

“ _No!_ His gang friends are still out there and they haven’t faced a trail or judgement yet! And when I find them, _oh,_ I got some ideas. First, I’d chop of their hands so they’ll never hurt anyone again. _No,_ I’d go for the legs first so they can’t run away!” Emboldened green dart to Annie. “You should have captured him and not have scared him so badly that he falls off his horse! You should have brought him back alive!”

“Is that what I should have done?” Annie’s monotone voice inquires. 

Eren’s bares his clenched teeth and grits out. “ _Yes._ They’re bound to show up again. They’re going to get away with what they did _again._ We should be there investigating the farm right now! Not the Military Police! How else are we expected to be good soldiers?!”

“There’s no need to get riled up over his, Eren.” Mikasa tries to calm her life-long friend. She puts a soft hand on his shoulder. “Everyone is here and is safe.”

He yanks his shoulder away from her touch and yells, _“That’s not enough!”_  

The atmosphere becomes too gloomy and tense for Armin’s comfort, so much so he stares at his lap to avoid eye contact with anyone. Then a scoff so disgusted and powerful, spittle could fly from one’s mouth enters the air. Perplexed eyes stare at Connie whose eyes are narrow and face is wrinkled with contempt.

“And you all like to gloat about how your points set you up well for the Top Ten.” He demeans everyone. “But you all didn’t bother to take the time to figure out the _actual_ truth.”

Reiner and Armin glance at each other before diverting back to Connie whose eyes glaze over with malice; such a face is unsettling to see on someone so commonly happy. “Of course the story we tell the public is about drug dealers being the murderers. If the public knew about what was actually in those mountains...there would be a panic.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ymir spits out impatiently. 

 “Yeah.” Jean looks toward his friend with a perplexed side-glance. “What _are_ you talking about?”

The creases between Connie’s brows become stern and sorrowful. “While you all slept, I had time to wander the forest around the barn. I couldn’t sleep at all and I thought the night air would do me some good…but I was wrong. I got so nervous, I couldn’t find my way back so I found shelter in a nearby cave. There I, I found something…something which showed me who _truly_ was the culprit for hurting that poor family.”

“Who was it?” Eren eagerly searches. The vengeful boy grabs his friend by the shoulders. “Tell me already!”

Connie deeply inhales and turns his face away. “I don’t think I can say…I had to run the minute I saw them.”

Eren’s fingers sink into Connie’s shoulders as he shakes him. “Say it already! Who and where are they?!”

Connie’s chin falls into his chest and so quietly, he mutters. “Cannibals from Sawney Bean’s cult were in the cave. There were skeletons _everywhere_ …” 

A hush comes over the room. 

“That’s impossible.” Eren replies with a tremor in his voice. “Every single one of the cult members were hanged. The teacher said so!”

Connie shakes his head and holds his hands over his mouth, jerking like he’s about to vomit. “I still remember how they look.” He speaks through his fingers. “The loose skin on their faces, the nasty smell of their breath filling up the cave’s air. Even…”

There’s a pause and Armin leans forward in his spot on the bed, trying to see if Connie with his hands shifting about his face is alright. He then pounces up to loom over Eren, revealing wooden dentures in his mouth which were sharpened into razor-edged teeth. “ _They’re super sharp teeth!”_ He yells loudly.

_“What the-?”_ Eren leans back with a puzzled expression.

_“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”_ Sasha shrieks while leaning away from Connie who switched to loom over her with the sharpened dentures. “The cannibals can evolve quick!” She grabs a nearby mop and swipes at the slowly approaching Connie-cannibal. “Back! I said _back!_ ”

“And here I was expecting Big Foot to be the ‘actual culprit’.” Ymir sighs and flicks away the grime beneath her fingernail. “What a waste of a perfectly good plot twist.”

“I don’t…” Marco struggles to comprehend.

“This makes no sense.” Reiner comments with a judgmental look to his friend. “Connie, why are you— “

“Hey, _shut up.”_ Jean reprimands Reiner with a hiss through his teeth. “If we get this story to stick, we probably won’t do mountain hikes anymore. Think about it. Ongoing enemy hiding out in caves. Ones which _eat_ people. Sounds too dangerous to send newbies up there to me, right?”

“Say, Connie, can you remind me about the color of the cannibals’ eyes again?” Reiner immediately goes along with the charade. “I was scared shitless and the trauma must have buried the details in my memory.” 

Armin can only watch as everything unfolds in front of them. Eren follows Connie as he marches around the room after a shrieking Sasha, asking if what he says really is true while others scratch their heads or roll their eyes.

“That was more disrespectful than I expected.” Annie criticizes next to Armin.

“I’m not so sure...” Armin follows up Annie’s statement. “Bringing up that topic was…uncomfortable to say the least. I’m glad he diverted it. Maybe this is his way of dealing with everything?” Growls from Connie’s cannibal imitation and Sasha shrieking while shoving the yarn-threaded end of the mop against her friend’s forehead fills the infirmary. Armin smiles a little. “Comedy seems to be his and Sasha’s coping mechanism.”

Annie’s eyebrows fall a little before she closes her eyes and looks away. “You’re too understanding for your own good.”

Armin’s smile shifts into a wide grin. “Maybe but I hope not.” 

Armin looks on as Krista squeals away from a growling Connie and Ymir kicks him in the gut. His skit—or whatever this stunt Connie pulled—continues on with Reiner laughing in the background and Eren sitting back on Armin’s bed, confused.

“I’ll grill your buttocks into steak!” Connie declares to Jean which draws an uproar of laughter in the room. “Give me precious energy!!”

“Touching my ass will be the _last_ thing you ever do, Connie!!” Jean yells as he scrambles about the room to find something to hit his friend with.

Everyone laughs harder except for Mikasa who stares blankly at her less mature squad mates.

“Connie,” Mikasa calls his attention. “Shouldn’t you be more worried about the test tomorrow rather than running around spouting tall-tales?”

The comedic duo freeze in their spots. Connie’s face pales and jaw slackens enough, his false teeth fall out. “ _Crap_. The test is tomorrow?!”

“We took that last week.” Sasha says calmly.

“No, we had a quiz last week.” Krista politely points out. “That was only to prepare us for the exam tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

Connie and Sasha stare at each other.

_“We forgot!!”_ They both shout in unison. Both cadets zoom over to their tutor sitting in his bed and yank his arms for attention.

“You gotta help us, Armin!” Connie shouts in a panic. “I can’t afford another F! I don’t want to be hung upside down for hours again!”

“And I’ll die from embarrassment of being the only one with no bread at supper time!” Sasha frets. “I’ll die I’ll tell you! I need that to live!”

“Sasha, it’s impossible to die from embarrassment.” Reiner tells her.

_“My body will find a way!”_

Through the two’s shenanigans, Armin has to force back his aching arms and calm down his poorly performing students. Next to him, Annie’s forefinger and thumb rub her forehead as her head shakes and sight stays down—she’s probably exasperated or enduring another bout of headache pain. As Armin prepares to sheepishly apologize for the loud mayhem adding to her pains, cerulean blue eyes glisten.

Platinum blond bangs cover most of what he sees but Armin uncovers the playful jive of small smile moving her lips, one which graces her face so well, the skin over her cheeks softens and fondly uplifts her thin eyebrows. He’s never had his heart crash against his chest so hard before.

He’s also never seen anything so breathtaking in his life. 

* * *

 

 Annie heals into a serviceable condition within another couple of days. She’s dismissed from the infirmary and chained to focus on the studies she’s ignored while she is temporarily barred from combat. Reading alone in a quiet infirmary becomes lonely after some time, enough for Armin’s shoulders to slacken and focus on the door in hopes someone comes.

Always, Mikasa brightens up his day when she visits him. Yes, she embarrasses him too much in front of the nurse of how he’s doing: if he’s eating correctly and drinking water regularly, if his bowel movements are regular, everything which would redden any man’s face regardless of age, Mikasa shamelessly asks. But he loves having her around all the same as he does with Eren, even if most of his visits are about him gloating about how he’s “mastered” a move and how he will get Annie next time they fight.  

Armin wonders if somehow the sun hovers the tops of his ears when he thinks of her now. Annie’s visits are few and far between and the way she stalks in so smoothly and ends up at his side so quick scares the _absolute living hell_ out of him sometimes, but he’s thrilled to see her nonetheless. 

One day, Armin notices when Annie walks in how the fringes of her hair are partially damp with sweat and how her cheeks radiate with the pink-red symbol of a light sunburn; it’s another little detail he never saw before and to him, the natural highlight of red brightening up the fairness of her skin compliments her face well. 

“It must be nice outside.” Armin breathes out with a smile. He leans back into the mess of pillows at his back and cranes his head over to the windowsill. “I wish I could go out there for a bit. The nurses are adamant I stay here and when we do go outside, it’s never for more than five minutes. All they have to do is let me walk out with a crouch and give me a chair to sit on the porch. I’d be fine like that for hours.” He sighs. “In a perfect world, I guess.” 

Armin sighs longingly and those piercing light blue eyes which have admonished and acknowledged him are glued in his direction. Armin smiles then diverts his attention back into the courtyard resting in front of the higher up’s quarters. There’s a table with an umbrella and many flowerbeds filled with purple lilies and multiple-colored carnations. There’s even a gazebo where he’s seen some of the commanders go to smoke cigars and talk.

A clacking about the room and a metallic rolling noise against wood enters Armin’s sense of hearing. In front of him, Annie comes up to him, holding the iron handles of a wooden-seated wheelchair.  

“You’ve been cooped up for too long.” Annie says. “If they complain, it’s because they weren’t doing their job right. The sun will do you some good.”

There’s a crutch in her hand to help him stand up before Armin can request for one. “Aren’t you supposed to be studying though?” Armin asks worriedly. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Consider this my volunteer hours. They never said when I could and couldn’t use them.”

His teeth-revealing smile directs itself to Annie and it’s been a long-time since the boy has hopped into a chair so quickly. Being rolled back into the sight of the sun has never been more welcoming to Armin. His skin tingles and mood feels brighter just by feeling a sheet of natural warmth fall over his body. When they cross the sandy path and reach the cobblestone courtyard before a marble building, Annie parks themselves right by one of the flower beds, the one spot which is completely exposed to pure sunlight. 

Armin sighs and he is unsure how much time has passed where he sits like this, simply taking in the sun like he did when he lay in the grass with his friends, imagining himself to be one of the flowers which sprouts nearby or in a warm cocoon before his new body erupts. There’s a strange peace he can’t explain when every pore feels to be injected with rays of invigorating, beaming life. 

“I should have at least brought a sun hat for you.” Annie comments with her hand hovering over her eyes. “The heat isn’t forgiving on anyone right now.”

“I don’t mind.” Armin assures brightly. “After staying inside for so long, I could turn as red as a radish and not care.” He tilts his head back, soaking the cozy warmth of the sun in. “The sunburns will be worth it.”

“My bet is you’ll regret saying that first thing tomorrow morning.” Her smirk is the slightest tug up on the right side of her mouth. “Everyone always does.”

“I’ll take that bet!” He grins. “Except when I do inevitably get sunburned, I’ll be a human radish on wheels this time, not a walking radish on what you call my ‘twig legs’.”

He gets to see it again, the brief exhale-like laugh and the slightest hint of a genuine smile which barely exposes one of Annie’s canine teeth. A bubbly sensation rushes up in him. Maybe because seeing such rare reactions from Annie is why he becomes so happy.

“I wouldn’t want you to do that to yourself over a bet.” She moves her body back to the path of the infirmary. “I’ll get you a hat.”

“No, no. You’re fine! If anything,” A sudden wash of guilt comes over him. “If anything, Annie, I don’t want to burden you with having to look over me like this. You’re not my nurse and I’m certainly not going to make you act like you need to be. You don’t need to feel obligated to help me because I tried to help you.”

Sunshine colored side-fringe falls to the side with her head-tilt. “Do you want me to leave that badly? You seem to like to push me away every time I offer to help.”

“ _No.”_ Armin quickly denies. “I... I just don’t want you to lose your own time to catch up because I wanted to go outside. Plus, we’re lucky we haven’t been spotted yet. We could get in trouble just for loitering around here.”

“I’ll manage.” Annie crosses her arms and leans against the marble wall. “And I wouldn’t worry about the officers noticing. The higher ups have a tendency to be drunk a lot.”

Being reminded of the fact eases Armin enough where he feels comfortable to relax again. The coolness of the breeze and pouring of warmth over his skin is exactly as Annie said—he feels rejuvenated and his mood has bettered considerably. 

As he sits and Annie stands, Armin gazes into a nearby flower bed full of lilies only to see the soil is riddled with yellow-petaled dandelions. The sight induces a shimmer in circles of deep blue. Memory fabricates a transparent image of Grandfather wearing his brown straw hat and fussing under his breath as he crouches by the panel of flowers. 

_“These damn things are stubborn.” Grandfather’s salt and pepper beard hid the frustrated downturn of his lips. “No matter how many times I tug these out dandelions out, they sprout back up. Of course, they always happen to choose my prized lilies to grow in too.”_

_“They’re nice though.” The smaller version of himself admired from behind his grandparent. While the lilies, violets, and daffodils scattered in the garden captured most people’s attention, Armin liked dandelions the most. They remind him of himself—small, yellow, and curious to venture everywhere._

_The mustached end of Grandfather’s beard uplifted from a smile._ _“Be resilient like these pesky things, Armin. No doubt they can be pretty, but their roots run deep and they keep surviving no matter how many times I tug them out.” A tan, calloused hand yanks up a long, green wishbone-shaped root from the soil. “Sina knows they keep messing up my award-winning garden...”_

_Armin giggled and sat next to his elder to help. “Ok Grandpa.”_

“You’re smiling.” The way Annie phrases her words is a mixture of a statement and an invitation for him to answer why.

“Just something I remembered.” The timbre of his voice is simultaneously fond and far-away. Armin’s bandaged fingers reach over and pluck up the dandelion by its green stem. “My Grandfather worked on his garden almost every day and no matter how many precautions he’d take, no matter how many times he’d replace the soil or yank out the roots, dandelions would sprout from his flowerbeds. Sometimes they would be gone for months, even years, but eventually they would always sprout back up.” Armin’s last sentence comes out like a laugh. “I liked them so much, I found books to figure out why they keep coming back. They reach a stage after becoming a yellow flower like this where they have white floaties which can be carried off like sky lanterns. They mostly land in large expanses of land like grass and you’d _think_ these things would land on our lawn but somehow they always ended up in his flowerbeds, like they _wanted_ to make him angry.” His lips spring up into a goofy smile and a laugh can’t help but shake Armin’s pained chest. “And Grandpa would always get so mad! He once threw his gardening trowel so hard into the ground, the top of it broke! Then he got even _madder_ because he did that!”

His laugh is interrupted by a fit of coughing. Annie takes a concerned step forward and Armin’s hand quickly waves her down. A hot flush burns his cheeks. “S-Sorry. You must find me to be rambling at this point. I tend to do that.”

Her head lightly shakes in denial and Armin is relieved Annie isn’t finding him to be some rambling weirdo right now. How she’s focused on him and displays a face of ease reminds Armin of why he respects Annie so much: he’ll either get a quick, clear reason of why he’s being an idiot and ticking her off or her silence signals she is listening intently. He won’t get much input from her most of the time, but she _listens_ which matters to him most _._ Sometimes Eren gets distracted with what Armin talks about and Mikasa listens but an insecurity biting in his brain worries she only listens out of motherly instinct to avoid hurting his feelings, something which _knows_ he’s wrong about but is always concerned about anyway. With Annie, every issue she has with him is made clear and not hidden and he enjoys being told so, even if her words cut right into the bone.

“People treat dandelions like they’re nothing but a weed but what’s great about them is they are flowers too. They’re just stubborn and flow and grow wherever they want to go or follow wherever the wind takes them. There’s always a lot of them but each one is different in their own way.” He pauses. He remembers how Annie dodges combat practice or sleeps during class—appearing like another lazy cadet— yet whenever she’s challenged, she always exceeds expectations. Before Armin can think, he blurts out, “They kind of remind me of you, Annie.”

_That_ gets her attention and her eyes narrow a tad. “Is that your fluffy, disguised way of saying I’m a weed?” 

“Wha- _no, no, no!”_ He denies immediately. “I meant you’re the _opposite_ of a weed!”

“I’m a flower then.” 

“Well, not _literally_ a flower but similar to a family of flower, yes!”

Annie is silent then shrugs with an emotionless face. “Kinda lame but I guess the description fits. I’m weak and generic so I belong with a common flower type.”

Flaxen hair whip the sides of Armin’s face from his hard headshake. “Dandelions aren’t lame _or_ weak they’re _pretty!_ And you aren’t any of those things you say you are! You’re pretty too not generic!”

Annie blinks more rapidly than he’s seen before and Armin’s gut plummets to the floor. His chest tightens from panic when grey-blue eyes awkwardly roll over to his then dart away upon contact.

“I say that not in a _weird_ way of course b-but—.” He sputters out and scrambles to find an answer. “Platonically! I mean that very platonically!” _Wait, saying that might make her feel like she’s_ not _pretty._ “But I know of other people who think that way about you!” _No, that_ still _sounds weird._ “Not that I talk about you being pretty w-with other people, of course. I overheard them talking about you!” _Nice, now you made yourself sound like a stalker._ “N-Not that I’m listening for that either! You know how loud the mess hall gets sometimes when you can’t help what you over hear because people whisper louder than they should ‘cause people like Eren and Jean keep yelling at each other and everyone tries to talk over the noise and…”

The pinching of the corner of Annie’s eye alongside a slight elevation of her opposite brow shows Armin’s rapid rambling is only confusing her more.  

Armin’s lips press into a tight line and he sinks into his seat. “Forget it. Just forget it.” Embarrassed, Armin throws the flower out onto the cobblestones in front of him and ponders where the nearest cave is so he can hibernate in shame for the next century. “You can wheel me back inside now.”

Annie’s arms cross a little more tightly and her shoulders hunch as she presses her back into the wall. “No, I think you’ve earned a little more time out here.” Annie dismisses in a tight voice. “If you get in trouble for doing this, might as well make the time we spend out here worthwhile.”

Armin spots how her fingers dig into one of her arms from an intensely tight clench. His eyes go from her arm then to her face out of worry. “Does your arm hurt, Annie?”

“It’s nothing I can’t deal with.” She quickly dismisses. 

“Are you sure? We can head back to the infirmary.”

Her head tossing up tells him yes and to stop bugging her about it already. Armin complies and leans back in his wheelchair. 

 Despite things between them being a little awkward, he’s comfortable here and wishes he had a book to read as Annie slides down the wall to her bottom, taking up the task of examining her boots. Silence consumes the entirety of their remaining time together, though Armin doesn’t find the atmosphere so discomforting as he does with others. This silence is a comfortable constant and while Annie clearly has forged a stern presence around herself, the air about her is warm, calming even. A relaxed sigh escapes through the boy’s nose. 

This was a feeling he’s never shared with anyone else besides his closest friends: how he could stay here in this setting and be content forever.


End file.
